Quote:
Originally Posted by BarchCapper
Last week, Jason Beem's podcast had an interview with Colonial's trackman, Harrison Young, who's been in charge of their well-respected turf courses for a couple of years now. He was talking about them being Bermuda-based, so it's apparently not just a far south thing. Colonial and Churchill are close to the same latitude, although of course the local climates are different - to what extent that would affect Bermuda grass, I can't say.
From the podcast, it did sound like if you can get one growing, the rhizome-based growth structure of Bermuda can lend itself well to turf racing since the grass naturally spreads to fill empty spots (without needing to re-seed) and builds a well developed structure underneath the top surface that's very kind to horses.
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It could be but all I know is Gulfstream has abandoned it's turf racing because the turf was not safe and trainers were complaining about it. Their turf course was also Bermuda. Like you said maybe local climate thing but I believe Bermuda is native to Florida. I noticed that the NYRA tracks always have pristine looking grass as does Santa Anita , Keeneland and up here at Woodbine. Tampa also has a beautiful turf course although when they ran a few days there this summer it was getting torn up pretty good. I don't know why Churchill wouldn't use the formula NYRA or these other tracks with really nice turf courses have.
