alternative to grass tracks, which were being over-used and needed time to recover. O’Keeffe said one of the advantages of the synthetic track was that it gave horses consistent footing. “That’s what the synthetic surface provides underneath with the fibre and the oil and the wax. It also allows a high volume of workload to be performed on the track.” Synthetic tracks have slowly evolved from basic fibre sand tracks to surfaces that now contain different types of oils. “They’ve gradually improved and improved as science has gotten better and they will continue to. Also, we’ve got feedback from trainers on what they think and that’s also been important.”
O’Keeffe said injury rates with gallopers had fallen due to the synthetic tracks.
“At the volume and the speed that horses go, you will always have injuries so we’re always trying to improve our maintenance programs to reduce this.” “As time has gone on there have been less and less injuries due to the great new tracks and the productswe have tomaintain them.We also take feedback from the trainers, the riders and the vets as to what we can do better.” O’Keeffe said track maintenance was the most important role of his staff, which is made up of 25 full-time workers, and a handful of casuals. “It’s certainly the largest part of our working week that is spent maintaining all of the tracks.
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