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As anyone who go knows the first thing about time analysis will tell you, that only happens on FIRM, never mind Good to Firm, ground.
I don’t actually mind racing on unwatered natural surfaces – the breed needs to be robust – but racecourses should be honest with connections and punters alike.
Doesn’t bother me personally as I was banging on about how quick it was going to be just up the road from me all week, but I hope all yesterday’s runners are still sound today because anything with a rounded action that ideally needs the mud shouldn’t have run.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Trainers should be honest as well. As I posted elsewhere, why did Nicky Henderson run his horses at Newbury yesterday? I presume he walked the course.
Standard times are actually a more accurate barometer than course records (which by definition are one-offs) as they are the weight-adjusted average of the ten fastest times.
Zanza smashed standard by over 13 seconds – I haven’t seen that sort of thing in a form book since they were freely admitting to racing on Hard ground at places like Devon & (as was) Exeter in the height of summer back in the day.
Long Run was the previous track record holder so, unless you think Zanza is headed for Cheltenham Gold Cup victory himself one day, it’s clear it was like a road.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Henderson was at Newbury. He knew what the ground was like.
Sorry to sound like a stuck record but when he threw his toys out of the pram at Ascot, he said he would run nothing in his yard on the ground that day.
But he just happened to run something in the most valuable handicap hurdle of the season on ground that was at least firm and maybe close to old fashioned hard.
Who would have thought it?
Since there is a lot of concentration on the “going” to be the cause of fast times (Oh Yes it is -TRF, Oh No it isn’t – Newbury racecourse), do we know if anybody checked the placing of the rails, or even the placing of the the starts?
Legitimate questions, MV – the Racing Post analysis suggests you can actually ADD 47 yards to the distance of Zanza’s race.
Annual Invictus is add 40 yards, Funambule Sivola is add 32 yards and Aucenrisque is add 23 yards.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"I timed the second race, the 3M handicap hurdle as it was run and got the same time, within one second, as the official 5m 43s.
This was the offical statement on distances from the clerk of the course:
All bends are railed out from the innermost line adding the following to race distances; 13:15 47 yards (approx) 13:50 40 yards (approx) 14:25 47 yards (approx) 15:00 32 yards (approx) 15:35 23 yards (approx) 16:10 23 yards (approx) 16:43 23 yards (approx)
I’ve said it before but there really needs to be a universal standard for what is considered “hard” “firm” “good” “soft” “yielding” or “heavy” turf. It should also be closer to objective than the current standard, which is apparently just whatever the stewards feel like it is.
I can’t fault the logic, Miss Woodford, but that’s actually more difficult to achieve than it sounds.
If you go on TurfTrax and go in the archives you will find that a going stick reading can mean different things at different tracks, some of which may have a clay subsoil, others a chalky subsoil and others something else again.
Sadly, natural turf and whatever’s underneath it is not homogenous.
I use a combination of going stick readings and race times relative to race distance on the day and standard (defined in an earlier post) in tandem with the actual rateable quality of the horses running to ascertain the ground.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Nicky Henderson has the only “official” going stick available to mankind
its his blind stick and if he doesn’t jar his knees or get a blister on his feet when walking the course its not too fast
got it…
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I guess the BHA course inspector was busy and couldn’t inspect Newbury before Saturday
Reason for not be able to water: our irrigation licence doesn’t start until March……WTF!
Looks like they are OK about losing a Friday fixture at a small track but not a Saturday fixture at a big track with an £85,000 race.
“Reason for not be able to water: our irregation licence doesn’t start until March……WTF!”
I’m not sure why you’re surprised, LD73, it was the same reason at Newbury, will be the same at Leicester on Thursday and is probably the case all over the country.
Local authorities don’t want racecourses chucking water on racecourses at any time, and especially not in winter.
Wouldn’t surprise me if irrigation licences became increasingly more stringent in terms of start and end dates as global warming and low water tables aren’t going to go away.
Here’s a thought – maybe racing should go back to breeding horses that can go on Firm ground and let nature take its course?
“Quickest ground in 25 years” suggests to me that prior to 1998 they’d have raced and simply called it Firm or even Hard.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"
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