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How on earth did racing manage to take place in the days before clerks of the course poured water all over their tracks?
Maybe it was because the breed was sturdier and trainers were not likely to be scared of setting its dainty little hooves on ground on the firm side of good?
The first meeting I went to at Musselburgh (then Edinburgh) was in August 1993. The going was firm but fields were a decent size, 12, 15, 7, 17, 7 and 13 (1 non-runner).
I echo Cork All Star’s questions.
As I’ve probably bored everyone saying countless times, I think it’s self defeating.
Overwater to cater for infirm horses, you just weaken the breed over time.
No one wants to breed from hardy, good-boned, daisy cutter action fast-ground stock and more as the progeny won’t get the opportunities.
And conversely talented but fragile horses with dodgy conformation can win Group 1s and be fashionable at stud.
Out with the sound and in with the infirm.
What then?
Water even more?
Eliminate the word “Good” as well as “Firm” from ground descriptions?
Where will it all end?
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"The only cross examination the clerk received from the hopeless interviewer on RTV was “Will you have to water again after racing on Saturday?”
Why does no one ask him and Prosser at Newmarket why they are not providing good to firm ground with watering per the directive?
To listen to you Ian, you’d think flat breeders are all looking for round pounding actioned sires who only act on soft.
Value Is Everything“To listen to you Ian, you’d think flat breeders are all looking for round pounding actioned sires who only act on soft.”
Do you simply not understand, GT?
Breeders will eventually have no choice in the matter.
No one will want to buy a yearling from fast-ground stock – unless they live in Bath and that’s the only track they ever want to visit!
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"To think they used to race on officially hard ground at the likes of Bath, Brighton and Carlisle. I am sure I can remember a jumps meeting at Towcester going ahead on hard ground one day.
I was reading a 1979/80 NH form book the other day, CAS.
Firm ground at Newton Abbot, Hard ground at Devon & Exeter.
And some massive field sizes!
The same horses running week after week all summer long.
Different breeding priorities then – there was greater respect for good bone and conformation.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"The good old days, when people didn’t give a xxxx about the horses health
.Just because in your rose tinted specs about when you were a laad, you remember some horses coming back week after week, doesn’t mean there wasn’t a hell of a lot that got injured or worse.
Value Is EverythingGinger, where is the evidence that ground on the fast side of good is bad for a horse’s health? Because that is the position we now appear to be in.
CAS – I doubt they could do any studies on whether fast ground effects horses or not because you would actually require fast ground in the first place for horses to gallop on.
Max Vega OR 105 4.81 seconds slower than standard for 1m4f in the John Porter.
I would call that more Good to Soft than Good on the round course.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"“Ginger, where is the evidence that ground on the fast side of good is bad for a horse’s health? Because that is the position we now appear to be in”.
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I was writing about Ian reminiscing about “firm” and “hard” ground over jumps, CAS.
It is a well known fact that anyone or anything falling on a hard solid surface is in more danger of injury or death than falling on a soft pliable surface. That’s just the nature of the two surfaces and I don’t need evidence to tell me that.
As a kid at the seaside I jumped off a wall onto soft sand. Great fun, got up and did it again and again.
Then at home – thinking it was the same – I jumped off a wall of the same height onto concrete… and was in severe pain.Where is your evidence there is no difference to a horse’s health?
Value Is EverythingI am talking about the situation today where a clerk of the course at a Group 1 track has decided that the ground has to be on the soft side of good for Flat racing.
I think it is entirely reasonable to ask why. I can only assume the clerk has decided that fast ground is bad or has come under pressure from trainers to produce slow ground.
If we are really saying ground on the fast side of good is now dangerous and bad for the health and wellbeing of horses, then racing has a problem.
As ID has pointed out, there is a glaring contradiction between breeders increasingly producing horses for speed and trainers who seem to be on the point of fainting at the idea of their fragile, speed bred charges possibly being asked to step out on ground marginally on the fast side of good. A crazy situation.
4.81 seconds slow in a race that did not appear slowly or strongly run is imo between Good and Good-soft.
More good than good-soft.Value Is EverythingWho needs actual statistical evidence when we’ve got GT’s jumping-off-a-wall anecdote to rely on?
Still chuckling as I type.
Plot….completely and utterly lost.
Anyway, I don’t think there will be too many fallers at Newbury today – as stated the John Porter time suggests Good to Soft to me, let’s see what the Fred Darling brings.
They watered to achieve this.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"
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