Interesting discussion guys - and one that indicates that there are a number of roads to Damascus.

While not necessarily disagreeing with JFC, think that osulldj is closer to the the Holy Grail (if one exists, which probably doesn't).

I'm not sure if I've fully understood what JFC wrote in his last post on this theme, but using his 1200m Kembla Grange examples and based on many hundereds of races over the last eight years or so, the following are my own standard times for this track (I should add that like osulldj, I also use the median time as a reality test):

Good Track Conditions:
Maidens: 71.24 (71.23)
Class 1: 70.78 (70.70)
Class 2: 70.83 (70.91)
Class 6: 70.72 (70.81)
Open: 70.02 (70.01)
Median times in brackets

The above type of skew in my experience is common - maidens return the worst averages with the class 1's to 6's being somewhat all over the show - track to track Australia wide.

So while I accept some of what you've stated re the classes, I disagree with both of you in some aspects.

JFC raised the very valid issue of different track conditions but this can be overcome to a degree by the establishment of a daily track variant.

Even then, the times on the day will be affected by the classes of both the races and horses completing on any given day but these issues can be handled.

Another issue raised by JFC was slowly run races, at least races where the early pace was slow.

This too can be overcome by the establisment of both early and late standard sectional times - I use such a method to great success.

As an example, while the overall standard time for Open Handicaps at Kembla Grange is 70.02s, a more accurate time for those that are run where the early pace is Ok is 69.81, over a length quicker.

These more accurate standard times (which should be termed as benchmark times) can be assessed by only using races where the early pace is faster than the early sectional standard time, which in turn can be assessed in a similar manner to how osulldj works out his overall standard times.

[ This Message was edited by: La Mer on 2003-06-17 23:48 ]

[ This Message was edited by: La Mer on 2003-06-17 23:50 ]