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Any idea why French ground tends to be on the softer side than the uk
Can’t imagine their weather is generally worse than ours. Do they water the tracks much more over there?
Tracks are irrigated in the spring and summer, two to three times a week, so as to maintain the level of the available soil water reserve, or even a little more often to ensure that the ground is soft and the horses don’t get injured. Generally, when the grass is mown it is left quite tall, between 10 and 12 cm, allowing the turf to retain moisture and providing a further cushion. Race times make the ground seem even slower as they run very steadily until the sprint finish.
I’ve often wondered if they have different parameters to uk?
Arc day in 2007 was particularly frustrating with top of the ground loving Benbaun winning the l’abbaye handily on "g/s", which was nonsense, prompting some rapid punting revisions for the rest of the card.
Claude Chalet
the RacingUK French correspondent, once quoted that clerks of the courses in France do not bother giving out accurate going descriptions
A lot of the going descriptions given out by the
Racing Post
are lost in translation, for example
"tres souple"
is not
very soft
, the correct translation in French racing terms is
yielding to soft
Going translation chart:
https://web.cloud.virginmedia.com/?shar … 0448147d8e
On many occasions while compiling my speed figures for French racing on the flat, the Racing Post has had the going description down as
soft
, but my going allowance figures said it was
good to firm
.
If you check out the standard times list below, you will find my
French standard times
, if I had taken any notice of the official going descriptions, I would have ended up as a basket case
Mike.
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