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According to ATR yesterday Jimmy Fortune described the going as heavy while the others reackoned soft. My simple mind has always wondered how a jockey works out the state of the ground when he is six foot above it. What parameters does he use? and does he take into account his mounts preferred ground.
Thanks
Stu
bucketnut,
I think it is a question of being put on the spot and having to say something rather than a carefully considered opinion. If the question was put and they said something like, "I’m not really sure", they would look rather foolish.
The only way to assess the going accurately is to consider race times, sectional times and any other evidence about the pace and time of the race for horses of the calibre that competed. Asking jockeys, trainers and other professionals is useful only to support objective evidence.
Like the good professionals that they are, they base their judgement on the combination of thoroughly walking the course before racing and the feeling he gets from the horse racing on it
The best comment I heard regarding this issue came from Robert Thornton. He said that if you’re on a horse and you anticipate the horse running well on good ground and the horse wins, then you return to the winner’s enclosure saying ‘nothing wrong with the ground it’s absolutely perfect.’
However, should you be on a horse that you think dislikes soft ground and runs badly in the first race on the card, you return to connections and journalists and utter the usual ‘he never went a yard, ground was like glue, he couldn’t handle it, it’s very soft out there.’
I agree with Artemis’ comments regarding the watch being a far more accurate indicator.
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