Track repairs delay race

The euphoria being felt over positive reviews for Santa Anita’s revamped synthetic track cooled Wednesday when the sixth race was delayed nearly 25 minutes for repair work.

“There were some soft spots and some inconsistency with the track,” Santa Anita President Ron Charles said. “It was power harrowed. We went down about four inches.”

Jockeys then tested the track and gave approval for racing to continue.

More work was scheduled for Wednesday night, and Charles said he was confident the track would be in good shape for training this morning and racing this afternoon.

The first day of racing on the revamped track was Saturday, and Charles said trainers were continuing to rave about the track Tuesday. However, he had to quickly return from a business trip to Las Vegas on Wednesday when he heard that jockeys were complaining.

He said he had several phone conversations Wednesday with Ian Pearse, the Australian synthetic track expert who returned home Sunday after overseeing the recent repair project that is supposed to alleviate an ongoing drainage problem.

“He might have to come back, we don’t know,” Charles said. “We’ll continue to monitor the situation on a daily basis.”

There were five late scratches in the sixth, eighth and ninth races Wednesday, which was a make-up day. The seventh was a turf race, and there were no scratches.

Three of the late scratches were in the featured eighth race, which was reduced to a field of four. Doppio upset odds-on favorite Street Boss by a neck, covering the 6 1/2 furlongs in 1:15.08.

The 6-year-old Carla Gaines-trained gelding, ridden by Rafael Bajarano, won for the seventh time in 14 starts. He earned $37,800 to increase his career total to $210,760.

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larry.stewart@latimes.com