Today I decided to apply my old speed-ratings to yesterdays Flemington and Randwick races to determine the difference in the relative "speed" of each track yesterday.

Interestingly, both were both officially declared "Good". You'll see how inaccurate and misleading this official grading can be to the punter.

Flemington 9/11/02

Race..Class Par...Time Rating...Diff +/-

1......85 .........103.7 ........-17.8
2......N/A ........95.6 .........N/A
3......95 .........110.6 ........-15.6
4......90 .........110.4 ........-20.4
5......95 .........108.4 ........-13.6
6......100 ........118.7 ........-18.7
7......89 .........108.9 ........-19.9
8......100 ........111.2 ........-11.2
9......89 .........111 ..........-22

From this information, I've guesstimated that Flemington's Track Surface Speed (TTS) yesterday was -17.8. This represents a track grading of VF (Very Fast) on my track condition scale (below).

VVF -20.1 or less
VF -15.1, -20 (TSS range)
F -10.1, -15
VG -5.1, -10
G -0.1, -5
D 0, +5
VD +5.1, +10
S +10.1, +15
VS +15.1, +20
H +20.1, +25
VH +25.1, +30
VVH +30.1 or more

Randwick 9/11/02

1....N/A ......90.9 .....n/a
2....85 .......97.8 .....-12.8
3....80 .......91.7 .....-11.7
4....85 .......96.9 .....-11.9
5....85 .......88.6 .....-3.6
6....85 .......89.3 .....-4.3
7....89 .......86.2 .....+2.8
8....85 .......90.2 .....-5.2

The TSS for Randwick yesterday is guesstimated to be -7.3...A whopping 10.5 points slower (5.25 legnths) than Flemington. Which makes a mockery of the official "Good" classification for both tracks.

These figures aren't flawless, but they always gave me a somewhat accurate reading of a tracks condition when analysing the form - a much more accurate figure than the official grading thats for sure.

IMO, a TSS of -17.3 is FAR too hard for horses to race on. Sydney has had the same dry and hot conditions as Melbourne in the past few weeks, yet they managed to produce a racing surface which was more condusive to fair racing.

While on the subject of yesterdays track surface speeds, its interesting to compare the times of the 2YO's from both races yesterday.

At Randwick Polar Success ran 58.30 for the 1000m, while at Flemington Ra Sun ran 58.32 (albeit much slower early pace) over the same distance. Considering Randwick was 5.25 lenghts slower, Polar Success's run on the surface to be of a higher quality.

In defence of Flemington I saw an interview with the curator during the week in which he explained that they were putting the maximum amount of water they could on the track under the water restrictions in place in Melbourne. Apparantly they are restricted to watering to certain hours during the night only and cannot water in the morning at all. Due to this limitation and the capacity of the watering system there was a limit to how many mm of water they could physically get onto the track.

Having said that it still doesn't explain why track was rated as good rather than fast. Maybe they don't realise in Melbourne that there is such a thing as Fast????

__________________
"Computers can do that????" - Homer Simpson

hmm, water restrictions, actually thats a pretty good excuse :razz:

I guess hard tracks are part and parcel of racing in Australia at the beginning of our Summer. Still, its such a shame to see the top horses pull up lame or even break down due to the jarring from running on flint hard tracks.

In defence of the track manager, there were predictions of rain at various stages and at times the weather did look ominous. If they water it heavily and it then rains a little we end up with a Dead track, if they don't water it and the rain stays away the track is hard...either way it was hard for them to win.

There is no doubt the tracks at Flemington over the carnival were in the fast category. You only need to look at the times run to see that. My own rating records show that the track was on average 0.15 seconds fast per 200m compared to standard. So over 1600m the track was running up to 1.2 seconds fast....or approximately 7 lengths.