Santa Anita’s new track is tested

Sunrise was still more than an hour away and the lighting on the new synthetic track at Santa Anita was limited. The time was about 4:45 on Tuesday when Lava Man trotted past a few photographers whose flashes cut through the darkness.

“He’s not camera shy,” said Doug O’Neill, Lava Man’s trainer. “He loves this.”

Ron Charles, Santa Anita president, said, “This is historical. To have a horse of Lava Man’s stature throw out the first pitch, so to speak, is truly an honor for us.”

Lava Man has won 10 of 14 races since the beginning of 2006. He has won the Hollywood Gold Cup three times in a row, the Santa Anita Handicap twice and won Del Mar’s Pacific Classic last year. He usually gets top billing.

But on Tuesday he played a supporting role. The main attraction was the new Cushion Track, and Lava Man, who was shipped from Del Mar on Monday, was there to christen it. He was the first horse to set foot on the $10-million track.

Other horses tested the surface later as more photographers, plus a number of television trucks from local stations, arrived after the sun came up to provide more sufficient lighting at the Arcadia facility.

But exercise rider Tony Romero had the track to himself when, after trotting past the photographers, he trotted Lava Man around it once, then galloped him around it in the other direction.

Romero was smiling when he dismounted.

“It’s great, I love it,” Romero said of the track, and that appraisal had Charles, new Santa Anita track superintendent Richard Tedesco, Magna consultant Ted Malloy and a few others who were on hand smiling as well.

The first racing on the track will be Sept. 26 when the Oak Tree meeting opens.

The same company installed a Cushion Track at Hollywood Park last year. Del Mar got its new Polytrack synthetic surface from another manufacturer before the start of the 43-day meeting that ends today.

Because of safety issues, all major thoroughbred venues in the state were mandated by the California Horse Racing Board to switch to a synthetic surface by the start of 2008.

Being one of the last racetracks to install one seems to have been an advantage for Santa Anita.

Charles said his track is tighter than the ones at Hollywood Park and Del Mar, mainly because of the use of a heat-resistant jelly wax, and it should produce faster times and be fairer to horsemen and bettors.

Another plus, Charles pointed out, is that the rubber chips mixed into the surface to help make it tighter have been “granulated down.” There were complaints at Hollywood Park that the larger chips were flying up and hitting the horses.

Charles also said that the Santa Anita track, unlike the Polytrack at Del Mar, will be watered regularly.

“We have to water it because of the heat we get here in Arcadia,” he said.

Santa Anita has a new sprinkler system that cost $500,000 to $600,000, but a water truck will still be used to some extent.

“We’re hoping it will be used much less,” Charles said. “A problem with the water truck is it leaves tire marks on the track.”

The new track, which has a seven-inch cushion top and two inches of asphalt on top of a foundation of rocks, has an elaborate drainage system.

“But the most important factor about synthetic tracks is that they are safer for the horses,” Charles said.

As for Lava Man, O’Neill said he came out of the Aug. 19 Pacific Classic in great shape, despite a sixth-place finish.

“A mile and a quarter was too long a race on that surface,” said O’Neill, who added with a smile, “I’ve petitioned to have the race cut back to a mile next year.”

O’Neill said Lava Man would next run in the Oak Tree’s Goodwood Handicap on Sept. 29 or the Oak Tree Mile on Oct. 7. After that, he will decide whether to run him in the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Oct. 27.

A testament to the popularity of the synthetic track at Del Mar is that the big races there during the current meeting have been attracting large fields.

Today’s Grade I $250,000 Del Futurity -- a seven-furlong sprint for 2-year-olds that headlines the closing-day card -- is no exception. A field of 13, the largest for this race since 1967, is entered. From 1999 to 2006, the Futurity had fields of five or fewer four times.

There is a pick six carry-over of $993,898, with a mandatory payout because it is closing day.

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larry.stewart@latimes.com