Fallon will test Tapeta on Meydan

Kieren Fallon told us last evening that tomorrow morning he will test the new Tapeta racing surface at Meydan on its first day of operation as a training surface. He has been asked for the racing officials to give his opinion of the surface.

Fallon will ride our colt Gitano Hernando in the $10 million World Cup on March 27.

Yes, this is the same Fallon that was singled out by me as the best jockey I have seen in my lifetime prior to his return to action last year, when some readers herein questioned my sanity.

Now that he is back on top, he generally seems to have picked up a few supporters along the way.

Fallon rode our colt to win the Grade 1 Goodwood Stakes at Santa Anita last fall. We skipped the Breeders Cup, returned him to Marco Botti at Newmarket and he is training well. He most likely will only show up for the race. We move a nice handicapper of ours (103 Timeform) from France to England to use as a workmate for the big colt.

Been watching a few interviews he done,the guy is full tilt!!

I hope he wins the championship this year.

Fallons best ride

And him riding a filly that was a true "superstar" unfortunately she gave London News a drubbing in one of the runs..click here

His intellect on the ground and his demeanor in the saddle separate him from the crowd. Nobody gets runs out of a horse by doing less in the saddle than him. Only Bill Shoemaker in his prime is anything like him.

hibernia Wrote:

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> Fallons best ride

I was hoping that it was that one. An incredible ride.

Skews my ignorance but what is Tapeta made of??...I suppose I could google it

There is a pic on homepage,Barry might know better but im sure its a mix of textiles? or was that another surface barry?

Google it.

Designed by trainer Michael Dickinson, Tapeta™ Footings represents the culmination of a life-long pursuit to create the perfect surface for equine athletes. Tapeta™ (Latin for "carpet") is specially designed first and foremost to protect the horse's well-being, providing a cushion that protects the legs and feet of horses in training from the injuries common on industry-standard dirt surfaces. The patented wax-coated mixture of sand, rubber and fiber is impervious to weather and never turns to mud, and is the only system on the market today that has been tested over time to hold up under varied and severe weather conditions.

First unveiled in 1998, the surface drew immediate acclaim when Tapeta™-trained Cetewayo won the Grade-1 Sword Dancer at Saratoga, and Da Hoss won the Breeders' Cup Mile at Churchill Downs.

This revolutionary surface has been used at Tapeta Farm in North East, Maryland for the past eight years, and has been manufactured since 2005 for use on Thoroughbred racetracks and training tracks around the world. Requiring very little maintenance, Tapeta™ is the perfect surface for any training/schooling venue either indoors or out, and lends itself to any equine discipline. Our exhaustive research and testing has provided one of the safest, most reliable surfaces for horse and rider on today's market.

Michael Dickinson developed the surface and installed it originally at his training center in Maryland.

He is quite secretive about what the exact mixture is, but it looks like the type of all-weather surface I first saw at Richard Hannon's yard in England, where it was a mix of peat moss and the little rubber bits that encase electrical wire. Hannon used to get the rubber from a manufacturer. He got the defective parts.

What characterizes the stuff Michael uses is this look of the fuzz one extracts from a carpet vacuum. King of fluffy waste material.

There was a famous incident several years back where a rival trainer of jumping horses was seen to have climbed the fence at Michael's in order to filtch a sample of the surface material.

Dickinson sued the guy in court and won unspecified damages!

I will tell you this much: of the all-weather surfaces used in the U. S. so far, horsemen prefer the Tapeta by far.

Bob that was something special, cheers!