Maryland’s Fair Hill Training Center will replace its 7-furlong Tapeta Footings track this summer, an upgrade from one of the synthetic surface’s earliest installations to the company’s newest iteration Tapeta 13.

Funding is in place, material is being acquired and work is slated to begin in mid-July and take approximately six weeks though weather and other factors could shift that timeline. Fair Hill, home to approximately 700 Thoroughbred racehorses in 18 privately owned barns, was founded in 1983 with a 7-furlong wood-chip track and upgraded to include a 1-mile dirt track shortly thereafter. 

The wood chips were replaced 19 years ago with Tapeta, a synthetic training surface consisting of silica sand, wax and fibers created by former trainer Michael Dickinson. The first version was designed and installed at his Tapeta Farm in 1997. He and his wife Joan Wakefield established Tapeta Footings in 2005, and tracks have been installed at racetracks and training centers throughout the world including Presque Isle Downs in Pennsylvania and Canada’s Woodbine Racecourse. The new Belmont Park will include a Tapeta 13 surface, the same formula to be installed at Fair Hill.

The Fair Hill project has been several years in the making, spurred by conversations among barn owners, the condominium association board, Tapeta Footings and others. Funds acquired via condominium fees, state grants and a business loan will pay for the project.

“It’s been a two-and-a-half year project,” said Buddy Jones, co-owner of two barns on the property who spearheaded the funding effort. “A lot of people did a lot of work to get here, and we’re excited about the future. Fair Hill has a big economic impact in Cecil County and the state, and that was an important point to keep in mind. We’re grateful to the barn owners, the state of Maryland, Tapeta Footings and everyone who helped make this a reality.”

Construction steps will include removal of the existing footing, a thorough examination of and repairs to the porous asphalt base, blending of the new material on site and finally installation of the new surface on the same footprint inside the dirt oval. Unlike the nearly black Tapeta 1, the new version is lighter in color and does not use rubber as part of the formula.

“The Tapeta has held up well and we’ve been pleased with it, but we felt it was time to replace it,” said trainer Graham Motion, a Fair Hill barn owner and a member of the association board. “We breezed a lot of good horses on that track. We’re excited about it. It will be one more piece to training at Fair Hill.”

The project takes Dickinson back to his roots as his American training operation was based at Fair Hill in the mid-1980s through the launch of Tapeta Farm, also in Cecil County.

The Tapeta replacement also comes with the recent re-opening of the Fair Hill turf course, long home to the Fair Hill Races steeplechase meet, for training on state-owned property adjacent to the training center. The 1-mile course was rebuilt and redesigned in 2019-20 as part of a multi-discipline equine competition facility with the goal of regular training access and additional racing opportunities. Motion has breezed several horses on the 1-mile course this spring and been impressed.

“I think it’s spectacular,” he said of the turf. “It will be great to have it when we’re replacing the Tapeta, but I think it’s genuinely exciting for Fair Hill as a whole. To add access to that to everything else here is great. It’s already a great place to train horses and it’s getting better.”