Quote:
Originally Posted by azeri98
Why the in the hell would they try to grow a Bermuda based grass course in Kentucky? It's native to Florida and Gulfstream has abandoned it. IMO they will have to replace the Bermuda with something else. Here'sa though. How about Kentucky Blue grass?
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I am not an expert on turf courses but I suspect the basic problem is that any surface that you run a lot of races over, especially during a period when there isn't a lot of rain, is going to get torn up over time. When I am at the track, I see the workers out there tamping down the course, replacing divots, etc., after every turf race.
I remember a couple of years ago, Santa Anita just announced they were going to give the turf course a break for a couple of weeks.
Grass management isn't unique to horse racing. The NFL, for instance, puts a lot of effort into it and they had an expert, the Kansas City Chiefs' George Toma, who supervised some of their most difficult problems with torn up grass. And when I was younger, baseball fields routinely got torn up late into the season; MLB has clearly switched to different protocols/different grass in the last 20 years or so, because you no longer see torn up grass in September.
Bottom line, I bet this problem isn't simple and I trust the good faith of Churchill's people.
