Vienna said: "It was horrific. There were holes, it was uneven, and it was dangerous. They [synthetic surfaces] are no good.
"The promises at the beginning were they were safe, consistent, maintenance-free, and all-weather. They are not safe, they're not maintenance-free, they're not consistent, and they can't take water. None of it is true."
Santa Anita was forced to abandon meetings after the track failed to drain following heavy rain last year leaving the company that installed Pro-Ride to add materials in an attempt to fix the surface.
Trainer Bruce Headley, who won the Breeders' Cup Sprint in 2000 with Kona Gold, equated training and racing on a synthetic surface to swimming across a river full of alligators. "Some of us will survive, some won't," he said.
Another trainer, Henry Moreno, said: "I think we should go completely back to dirt. This is the worst I've ever seen in my 58 years in racing."
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