Since Southwell Racecourse replaced its Fibresand racing surface, which had been in use since 1989, in late 2021, all-weather racing in Britain has wholly taken place on Polytrack or Tapeta surfaces. Tapeta was the surface of choice at Southwell, as it was, eventually, at Wolverhampton, which had previously raced on Polytrack and Fibresand, in 2014, and Newcastle in 2016. Chelmsford City, formerly Great Leighs, Kempton and Lingfield all race on Polytrack.
Polytack was invented by British farmer Martin Collins and became the industry standard for all-weather exercise gallops in Britain after first being used by Richard Hannon Snr., in East Everleigh, Wiltshire, in 1987. It was first used as a racing surface at Lingfield, in November, 2001, where it replaced the previous, oft-criticised Equitrack surface. Tapeta, on the other hand, was invented by Michael Dickinson who, in the eighties, won the National Hunt Trainers’ Championship in three of the four seasons he held a licence in Britain. Dickinson later turned his hand to training on the Flat in the United States but, in 2007, handed in his licence to concentrate on marketing the all-weather surface, the first version of which had been laid at his Tapeta Farm training centre.
Of course, Polytrack and Tapeta are proprietary surfaces but, fundamentally, the differences between them are not vast. Polytrack consists of fibres of polypropylene – a lightweight, synthetic resin – and recycled rubber, mixed with silica sand and coated with wax. Similarly, Tapeta, which is essentially an enhanced, more predictable version of Polytrack, consists of a wax-coated mixture of silica sand and rubber fibres, which is laid, several inches deep, on a gravel base topped with porous asphalt.