Opening night, Sept. 5, will mark the two-year anniversary of the debut of Polytrack at Turfway Park. The surface, save for maintenance and some tweaking of content, is about as even from the inner rail to the outer rail today as it was in 2005. But life with a synthetic track also has had its ups and downs.

Turfway was the first facility in North America to install a synthetic surface for racing, so it has served as a laboratory of sorts. But as the 22-day meet at the Northern Kentucky track approaches, officials believe they’re got more data and a better surface.

During the past two winters, track management realized temperature does play a role in synthetic-surface racing. Problems with the surface–primarily clodding and sticking–led to replacement of the top layer and experimentation with different types of wax, one of the components of Polytrack.

“We don’t have it all figured out yet, but we’re much smarter today,” Turfway president Bob Elliston said. “Most every single day, it’s an extremely safe racing surface. We had no catastrophic breakdowns this summer (during off-season training), and I think that speaks to delineating what’s most important about the surface