Last year, a horse broke his right front leg while leading in a turf race and was euthanized on the track, shocking fans awaiting the start of the Preakness.

Kozak and his crew were busy Wednesday preparing the dirt track for three consecutive days of racing that begin Thursday. The 37-year-old superintendent, readying for his fourth Preakness, has brought in a third horse ambulance for Pimlico’s biggest day. It features a hydraulic lift that makes it easier to load an injured horse instead of making the animal go up a ramp or a step.

“We have a very good reputation for how safe a racetrack this is and our numbers prove that. Maryland has always been known for a very good surface,” Kozak said. “Whether it’s the Preakness, the Pimlico Special or one of the cheaper races, it’s a consistent racetrack.”

Tractors harrow the 70-foot wide dirt surface — composed of sand, silt and clay — to maintain a uniform depth. Then a rubber-tired roller with weights on it goes over the dirt three times to pack down the surface and keep water from penetrating it in what is known as sealing the track. Dirt tracks drain horizontally, with water spilling off the inside and outside. The newer synthetic tracks drain vertically.

Between now and Saturday, Kozak consults a meteorologist and watches TV forecasts.

“I pay more attention to The Weather Channel than I do to my family at this point,” he said. “Mother Nature, it can hurt you or help you.”

Pimlico’s one-mile oval with its tight turns has a reputation for favoring speed horses that go to the lead.

“The track doesn’t get souped up for a big day,” Kozak said. “The best thing is to keep the track consistent and that’s what we strive to do.”

Rick Dutrow Jr., who trains Big Brown and started his career at Maryland’s tracks, has criticized Pimlico’s surface.

“The track’s been too hard at Pimlico forever. It’s so hard and fast all the time it usually favors speed,” he said. “It looks like it’s going to favor our horse, but I would much rather be running on a safe, fast, dry track. I hope that they don’t have it packed down where they’re hoping for a track record. It’s stupid.”

Kozak hates hearing those kind of comments, even though his job is subject to constant second-guessing.

“It’s just like football players playing on Astroturf or natural fields. Every trainer has their own idea,” he said. “You can’t get swayed by a trainer’s criticism or comment on a racetrack, you just have to keep it consistent.”

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He noted that trainers often blame the track surface when perhaps other factors were responsible for a poor performance or a breakdown, such as training methods, a horse’s nutrition, breeding and breaking as a yearling or its age when it began racing.

“It doesn’t always go back to the racetrack (surface),” Kozak said.

Zito won the 1996 Preakness with Louis Quatorze and is a proponent of dirt over synthetic surfaces, which have mitigated breakdowns but caused bone, soft tissue and hind-end injuries.

“I broke the track record here one day with Louis Quatorze, so it’s OK,” he said about Pimlico’s surface. “No problems. They’ve got a good superintendent here.”

Kozak jokes that there’s no manual to consult on how a racing strip should be. He watches the time of races, the horses running over it and their morning workouts.

“If horses are winning from different locations on the track, whether they’re on the front end or coming off the pace, and the horses are coming back from the race OK, you know you’ve done a good job,” he said.

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