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From RP website
<br>ALL 58 British turf courses will use the GoingStick next year after the Levy Board confirmed that it will be allocating a grant of £45,000 which will ensure each track is able to lease their own instrument for a 12 month period.
Taking effect from March next year, the Horseracing Regulatory Authority will require allclerks of the course to provide a GoingStick reading at declaration stages, as well as on racedays, with the readings set to be published alongside the clerks’ official going reports.
Tony Goodhew, HRA, director of racecourse licensing and standardssaid: "Racing has always searched for a device that could take the subjectivity out of going reports. After considerable research over several years, we are very hopeful that this 12 month programme across all turf courses will validate industry acceptance of the GoingStick and see its readings become a day-to-day part of all racecourses going reports.â€ÂÂ
Fantastic news. I only hope the instructions for use are clear and understood by the clerks who give going descriptions for commercial reasons.
A step in the right direction Wallace,
<br>Just a shame it’s took em 3 years to get there
I hope that the time the readings are taken and reported are standardised as well. At present they are not, according to the Racing Post.
It is of dubious use to have a going reading taken 48 hours or more before a meeting and treated as if it is bang up to date.
Here’s a table of my going allowances for Frankfurt in the last 2 turf seasons.  In Germany they use a 10 point scale where 4.5 and higher is soft and 3.0-4.4 is good.  In reality somewhere around 4.0 is proper good ground.  Using a 15 point scale may make things easier but I’m not convinced it will start giving you going reports that are much better than those we get at the moment.  <br>I didn’t choose Frankfurt for any reason, was just interested in what differences there can be with a randomly selected track.  The allowance is my allowance for the 1st race of each meeting.  As you can see 4.6 (g/soft in UK) has given +1.8 and -3.32 as extremes.  That’s a difference of 5.12 seconds per mile.  Or 30 lengths.  And I’m careful about kicking out slowly run races and checking suspicious times.  I gather in France it’s far worse to the extent going measurements can’t be trusted at all.
<br>g/allow. <br>(s/mile)  going<br>+1.8   3.8<br>+2.02     4<br>-0.26   4.1<br>-0.39   4.1<br>-1.9   4.1<br>+0.95   4.2<br>-0.4   4.2<br>+1.22   4.2<br>+1.4   4.3<br>-2.43   4.3<br>-0.21   4.4<br>+0.71   4.5<br>-2.37   4.5<br>+1.8   4.6<br>-1.5   4.6<br>-3.32   4.6<br>-2.52   5<br>-6.47   5<br>-2.66   5.1<br>-2.9   5.6<br>
Forgive my ignorance, what the key differences between the UK going stick and the French penetrometer?
I’ve found that the going declarations in France are pretty much useless.
(though part of that is that they are announced a couple of days in advance and the French courses can change going quite dramatically in the interim)
Steve
Quote: from stevedvg on 6:37 pm on Dec. 19, 2006[br]Forgive my ignorance, what the key differences between the UK going stick and the French penetrometer?
I’ve found that the going declarations in France are pretty much useless.
(though part of that is that they are announced a couple of days in advance and the French courses can change going quite dramatically in the interim)
Steve ÂÂÂ
Steve,
The French one is a stick with a weight falling a standard distance. The Cranfield Going stick is similar but has a "shear" measurement capability, taken by pulling the handle forwards by 45 degrees. Te latter is "claimed" to represent the turning action of the horse’s hooves.
Australia has found that the turf sticks have at best only moderate to poor correlation with race times. This is mainly because the stick energy is only about 1.3% of the energy that a horse foot imposes on the turf. The sticks only test the surface crust and not to the 14 inch depth that a horses’ weight is actually carried on.
The sticks do not tell the difference between a track drying out ie soft below and one that is dried out but has taken some surface rain – a huge difference for racing. Nor do they measure traction or surface slipperiness eg rain onto a firm surface, nor the shock absorbing cushion, nor the surface deformation. We still have to allow for that somehow.
The device is probably being introduced more to soothe the complaints from the trainers being misled than to help in predicting race conditions for the punter.
Quote: from robert99 on 8:27 pm on Dec. 19, 2006[br]The sticks only test the surface crust and not to the 14 inch depth that a horses’ weight is actually carried on.
14 inches seems a bit deep robert99 – are you sure that it’s over a foot or maybe 14 cm?
DB,
The hoof impact force is around 2 tonnes at racing speed. At 14 inch depth the force is spread over about 10 times the hoof area and that provides a reduced stress sufficent that even soft soil can support the load. Unless the track never gets watered then it is unlikely to be less depth than this even in a dry weather period.
York, with its high water table and soft subsoil is an example where the slightest overwatering to a surface that superficially looks dry turns the track going into a bog. Conversely, the clerks sometimes call Newmarket good-soft because of a superficially wet surface but it is firmer below (well drained chalk) and with the higher suport level the going is more consistent.
I’ve been trying (without success <!– s:wink: –>
<!– s:wink: –> ) to stimulate some debate on this topic. What are members views on the going stick reading as opposed to the official going? IMHO the going is the most important variable and for a serious punter accurate information in this respect is essential. I have undertaken some informal research which leads me to believe that the going stick reading agrees with Timeform’s post meeting assessment of the going more often than the official going but I’m interested to hear whether anyone has looked at this scientifically.I have not carried out much in the way of scientific research but the official going is something I take little account of. Going based on time is the best option open to most but going stick reading should provide the way forward. The main problem with going forecasts produce by employees of the course is their assessment will have more to do with business development to ensure plenty of entries.
What we need is a truly independent assessment of the going by a third party organization.
I have not carried out much in the way of scientific research but the official going is something I take little account of. Going based on time is the best option open to most but going stick reading should provide the way forward. The main problem with going forecasts produce by employees of the course is their assessment will have more to do with business development to ensure plenty of entries.
What we need is a truly independent assessment of the going by a third party organization.
I’m not exactly sure who carries out the going stick assessment. Before the first day of the last Cheltenham festival I telephoned Turftrax and ended up speaking to the guy that had actually taken the going stick readings. I assume Turftrax’ own employees therefore take the readings for the major meetings
I agree that racetimes are a good guide to assessing the going after racing but knowing the state of the ground before racing is essential for the punter/owner
There was a meeting at Windsor last flat season where the official going was reported before racing as Good (Good to Firm in Places). As I recall the reading was 8.2.
After the first the jockeys reported it was riding Good to Soft and the going was subsequently changed. I checked if there had been any rain, there hadn’t. The Clerk of the Course declined to be interviewed.
Kirkland Tellwright at Haydock swears the going on Sprint Cup day was Good to Firm (Good in places) and the going stick reading backed that up. However to me and lots others the going on the straight course was on the soft side of good.
Maybe the stick works better on particular soil types, maybe some Clerks use it better than others but it hasn’t been the final answer to the question of going report accuracy, not yet anyway.
That said I think the Clerks have a difficult job, particularly last Summer with so much heavy rain followed by an extended dry period, it led to a lot of crusting on the upper surface at some racecourses.
I’ve been trying (without success
) to stimulate some debate on this topic. What are members views on the going stick reading as opposed to the official going? IMHO the going is the most important variable and for a serious punter accurate information in this respect is essential. I have undertaken some informal research which leads me to believe that the going stick reading agrees with Timeform’s post meeting assessment of the going more often than the official going but I’m interested to hear whether anyone has looked at this scientifically..Jockeys and trainers report back to officials if the ground is not what they said it was and if it far off they announce the change in the going do they not?………….if you wanted to be scientific about it you would have to check the whole course before and after every race as ground does change after 30 horses gallop through it…is it windy is it not windy did it drizzle did it rain?……taking a readings after the last race could have what kind of bearing on what the ground was truly like in the second race?…especially of they said it was good to soft and it was actually more on the soft side of good to soft to start with…….then they might get a reading of soft….or it can go the opposite way if there a drying wind and it was more on the good side of good to soft to start with………so which races do you apply it to…….the last race the last 2 the last 3 or the last 5………you need more than a guy with a silly stick to work that one out I’m afraid.
There is a reduced recovery of kinetic and potential energy for each stride when a human runs on a soft surface such as dry sand. There is also a reduction in the recovery of elastic energy (mostly in the tendons). Because of these effects we tend to tire more quickly when running on a soft surface.
If we wanted a widget (a state-of-the-art stick!) to measure this in horse racing it might look a little like a pogo stick, bouncing its way along the track, measuring the reduced energy recovery on some suitable scale. The scale would, at some point, then need to be correlated with "Good to Soft", "Soft" and so on.
Patent pending …
I’ve been trying (without success
) to stimulate some debate on this topic. What are members views on the going stick reading as opposed to the official going? IMHO the going is the most important variable and for a serious punter accurate information in this respect is essential. I have undertaken some informal research which leads me to believe that the going stick reading agrees with Timeform’s post meeting assessment of the going more often than the official going but I’m interested to hear whether anyone has looked at this scientifically..Jockeys and trainers report back to officials if the ground is not what they said it was and if it far off they announce the change in the going do they not?………….if you wanted to be scientific about it you would have to check the whole course before and after every race as ground does change after 30 horses gallop through it…is it windy is it not windy did it drizzle did it rain?……taking a readings after the last race could have what kind of bearing on what the ground was truly like in the second race?…especially of they said it was good to soft and it was actually more on the soft side of good to soft to start with…….then they might get a reading of soft….or it can go the opposite way if there a drying wind and it was more on the good side of good to soft to start with………so which races do you apply it to…….the last race the last 2 the last 3 or the last 5………you need more than a guy with a silly stick to work that one out I’m afraid.
When Lottie won at Warwick the ground was officially soft, heavy in places. The going stick reading before racing indicated the ground was good to soft and in the parade ring Jamie Spencer confirmed that assessment. The official going wasn’t changed at any point.
As punters and owners it is surely critical to obtain the most accurate going assessment available before the first race. As a punter you may wish to take an early price and as an owner you may want to withdraw your horse (although ludicrously you still have to transport your horse to the course but that’s a topic for another thread). As I see it we have a choice between the official going and the going stick. The official going has everything to do with maximising field sizes and nothing to do with accurately assessing the true state of the ground (although Fiona Needham clearly hasn’t appreciated this as her going descriptions for Warwick last year indicate). The Going Stick is IMHO currently the best tool available to us and I cannot believe that serious punters aren’t factoring the reading into their assessment of races.
There is a reduced recovery of kinetic and potential energy for each stride when a human runs on a soft surface such as dry sand. There is also a reduction in the recovery of elastic energy (mostly in the tendons). Because of these effects we tend to tire more quickly when running on a soft surface.
If we wanted a widget (a state-of-the-art stick!) to measure this in horse racing it might look a little like a pogo stick, bouncing its way along the track, measuring the reduced energy recovery on some suitable scale. The scale would, at some point, then need to be correlated with "Good to Soft", "Soft" and so on.
Patent pending …
If you are interested in the science of the going stick the thesis in the link below is well worth a read
<!– s:wink: –> ) to stimulate some debate on this topic. What are members views on the going stick reading as opposed to the official going? IMHO the going is the most important variable and for a serious punter accurate information in this respect is essential. I have undertaken some informal research which leads me to believe that the going stick reading agrees with Timeform’s post meeting assessment of the going more often than the official going but I’m interested to hear whether anyone has looked at this scientifically.
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