After a day when world records were broken, Delaware County Fair track maintenance supervisor Greg Coon had to protect and prepare the track surface from expected rainfall on Thursday morning.
“For the first time, I scraped off the top of the track surface last night,” said Coon of Charles E. Coon & Sons. “You can see it here on the outside of the track,” as he pointed to the triangular shaped pile of dirt that circled the outside of the track.
After the first rainfall hit at about 8:40 a.m. on Thursday morning, it was hard to tell that it even rained by looking at the track surface. Following the 20-minute showers that brought with it very heavy rain for more than five minutes, Coon and his crew got right to work to get the track ready for an 11 a.m. first post time on Little Brown Jug Day.
“We scraped down to the clay base and you can see that the water ran down into the ditch (in the middle of the track),” added Coon. “Now we are adding chips like you see on a stone track to bring it back up. They’ll be running on clay today.”
But the skies were still overcast at 9:30 a.m. and there is still a probability of more rain.
“If it rains some more, hopefully it ends by noon,” said Coon. “Come over here,” he said as he led the way to the two track graders. “We’ve added rubber to the blades of the graders so that they’re like big sqeegees,” pointed out Coon. “And we will just keep adding more material.”
So will the track be fast for today’s 68th running of the Little Brown Jug?
“It will be fast or very close to fast,” predicted Coon. “I don’t think we’ll have the drying elements, wind, and it doesn’t look like there will be much sun. But there are two tracks, this one and the one in Lexington (The Red Mile), that when they’re wet, if you can get it just right…”
With excellent planning and lots of overtime, Greg Coon and his crew will have the track surface for the Little Brown Jug the best it can be.
Trot Insider will have live coverage of all the major stakes action from Delaware County Fair. To view the entries for Thursday's Jug Day program, click the following link: Thursday Program - Delaware County Fair.
(with files from USTA; USTA photo)