On a sunny and cold Tuesday morning Jan. 27, a yellow John Deere road grader, looking like a cross between a praying mantis and a Star Wars AT-AT transporter, idles in the cold. In the driver's seat, Juan Cordova applies some throttle and the 35,000-pound machine -- officially a 672D model -- crawls forward. On either side, assistants walk to gauge the depth of the angled blade and its wake. Snow, a foot deep and capped with a frozen crust, gives way and slides to the right.
Three laps and three hours later, the 7-furlong Tapeta track at Maryland's Fair Hill Training Center is mostly clear of snow. Two snowblowers -- a big one attached to a John Deere tractor and a smaller model hooked to a Bobcat utility vehicle -- finish the job by blasting a final snow mound over the outside rail.
Then the real work begins.
Using a germinator, a cultivator and a power harrow, Cordova and company de-compact the track and blend the final inch or two of snow into the synthetic surface over the next four hours and make periodic passes through the night to prevent freezing.
By morning, less than 24 hours after that grader took its first bite of snow and two days after the storm ended, the track is suitable for racehorses. Officially Fair Hill's track/maintenance manager, Cordova and a crew of eight to 10 others made it happen. At least someone was on duty for the better part of four days.
"This was a six-pizza storm," said Robert Croteau, Fair Hill's general manager, of helping keep the team fed overnight. "Our mantra is, number one, is it going to be safe? That means it has to be consistent, and we have to understand what the limitations are about attacking it and what we can afford to do. To have horses training on it was very elevating for the team. It felt really good."
Home to about 400 horses in the winter, Fair Hill also has a 1-mile dirt track but opts to leave it be during extreme weather. Frozen, packed down tightly and -- eventually -- cleared of snow, the dirt gets used for jogging and as an access route to the Tapeta. Developed by former trainer Michael Dickinson, the Tapeta track is Fair Hill's winter workhorse. It drains better than dirt, which helps in low temperatures and snowstorms, and brings predictability to an unpredictable situation.
"We can expend resources and time on the Tapeta and have a really decent surface the next day," said Croteau. "You could exert the same amount of resources on the dirt track and have a terrible surface the next day."
Six days after the Tapeta track-reopened, Fair Hill trainer Tim Woolley won a race at Laurel Park with Atlas Strong. The 6-year-old mare, whose last timed breeze came Jan. 23, won a $12,500 starter optional claimer going a mile on the dirt Feb. 4. It was her first start since November.
"You have to make adjustments," Woolley said of training in the winter. "Breeze when you think you can, not necessarily on your schedule. You've got a horse where you think you've got it and if you get weather it makes training even more of a challenge. If they run poorly, you don't know whether it's because they missed training or something else."
Woolley credited Laurel's care of its dirt surface through the wild weather, and loved the way his mare took to it.
"We are really fortunate to have the Tapeta all-weather track," the trainer said. "Our track has been really good to train over since they got the snow off it, and Laurel's track was in really good shape when we got there too. They have a few more resources to throw at it than we do, but none of it is easy."
Bred in Maryland by Harry Kassap, Atlas Strong got claimed in that Laurel race. Her new trainer? The Fair Hill-based Phil Schoenthal.
Fair Hill replaced its Tapeta over the summer and the track opened Sept. 11. Despite the haymakers thrown by snow in December, a major storm in January, single-digit temperatures and sub-zero wind chills, the track was closed for just 10 days through Feb. 11. During the same time frame, the dirt track was closed for more than 40 days -- and counting -- for being too wet, too cold or some combination of both.
During the January storm, Cordova and company stepped outside their comfort zones to make it happen, working through the night. Winter track maintenance puts machines and humans to the test.
On the mechanical side, tractors, harrows, graders and blowers require fuel, parts and maintenance. Metal harrow teeth, 300 per harrow, can wear out in less than three days on hard winter surfaces. They cost $8.50 apiece and must be replaced individually. Fuel can gel up and clog in extreme cold. Letting the machines run prevents that, but uses more fuel. A wet air filter will shut down a tractor, no matter where it is (on the track is the worst-case scenario). The specialized grooming harrow for the Tapeta must be sprayed with diesel fuel periodically to prevent material from sticking to it.
On the human side, all those machines need operators -- at all hours. Drivers on Maryland's Route 273 are probably used to it by now, but even the most seasoned will get a little unnerved by featureless headlights doing circles across the field.
The guys in the tractors find it just as hypnotizing.
"It's the quietest part of the day," said Cordova and the overnight shift. "You look at the same thing and you go around and around. Once in a while, you'll be like, 'Where am I?' Everything starts to look the same. You know you are on the track, but you might not know what part of the track."
Beyond the tracks, Fair Hill's maintenance crew is responsible for plowing the main road through the training center, clearing barn parking lots, opening horsepaths and smaller access roads and assisting barn owners/tenants with more day-to-day issues such as frozen pipes, electrical problems and generators that won't start.
Much of the job requires reacting to the storm and what develops, but Croteau tried to be proactive before the weather hit. Trainers received a message on the WhatsApp broadcast explaining the plan and steps they could take. The maintenance team used an overhead map to organize plowing plans, taking into account trash dumpsters, manure pits, parked vehicles and access for emergency vehicles to each barn.
"Make sure the animals get taken care of," Croteau said of the priority. "We want to make sure people have access to the barns, whether it's a skeleton crew coming in or people staying over, then we start talking about getting to the tracks."
Once the work starts on the training track, a new challenge emerges as crews strive to find consistency in an inconsistent time. Temperatures fluctuate from bitter overnight cold to somewhat balmy afternoons, creating a freeze/thaw scenario that plays havoc with track surfaces. Anywhere water collects -- roads, tracks, parking lots, horsepaths, track access gaps -- can turn treacherous without attention. Wind can create snow drifts or even blow away track material.
"Somedays you can stand at one part of the track and say, 'This is fine,' but if you walked around to the other side, you could play a hockey game," said Croteau. "The Tapeta is easier to keep consistent, but it needs more work in the winter than it does the rest of the year, especially when the dirt is closed."
Summer is the New Winter
Sundays in the picnic grove. Cool shade in the paddock. Ice cream from the grandstand counter. Harry M. Stevens cups full of icy soda. Air conditioning seemingly pumped from the Alps.
Summer racing at Delaware Park comes with its share of cool, but it all seemed as far away as the Fourth of July in early February. Open for winter training for the second consecutive year, Delaware was home to 300 horses and 50 trainers. All, along with track staffers, dealt with cold, snow, wind and ice to keep the dirt surface open for training.
In short, it was a battle.
"We're a summer racetrack staying open for the winter," said Jed Doro, director of racing. "There's a lot of work to do and it never ends. Mother Nature keeps pouring it on. It seems like every day there's something do deal with. It's pretty crazy weather to try to maintain a racetrack through."
For the late-January storm, Doro and track superintendent Derek Pettinger called in retired track super turned consultant Ken Brown for advice. The crew followed a predictable plan. First they prepped the track as much as possible -- grading dirt toward the outside rail, packing it down, getting the track as dry as possible, adding salt. Tractors ran until the snow started, then let it pile up. Like a blanket, the snow provided insulation for the dirt through even colder temperatures before it was time for snow removal. With a grader and a blower, Brown and Pettinger sent snow over the rails for three days. When the temperature climbed to 38 degrees Feb. 4, crews pulled out the harrows and started working the track through the afternoon and evening. Horses trained the next morning.
"We lost nine days of training and that stinks, do not get me wrong," said Doro, who credited his staff and the trainers on site with making the best of a difficult situation. Delaware makes a covered Equi-Ciser free walker available to trainers, who also used covered shedrows to keep horses moving.
Despite not being able to train on a track for more than a week, Sin Sin won a $15,000 maiden claimer at Laurel Park Feb. 4 for trainer Tony Pecoraro. The prep wasn't ideal, for anyone, but the 3-year-old Maryland-bred Bolfeld gelding delivered for owners/breeders Robert and Mary Atkinson.
"It's not an easy job when the weather's good, so not having a track for nine days was challenging," said Pecoraro. "He'd been on the Equi-Ciser, which helped, and that horse was doing really well. I thought the last time [a fourth Jan. 9] he would win; it seems like I'm always one start off."
In addition to Pecoraro, trainers at the track through the winter included Jamie Ness, Kelly Dieter, Tim Ritchey, Ben Perkins Jr., Ned Allard and Mike Gorham. The Allard-trained Quint's Brew finished third in the General George Stakes at Laurel Feb. 14, a month after winning the Jennings Stakes at the Maryland track.
Purchased by Clairvest Group from the Rickman family in late 2021, and managed by Rubico Gaming, Delaware doesn't race until May, but an open stable area in the winter helps make for full barns in the spring and summer.
"Horsemen asked for it," Doro said of winter stabling/training. "It was one of those things with new ownership we took a flier. It helps the local people not have to pick up and move as much. It worked last winter. The temperature was pretty cold, but we didn't get as much snow."
