Chief Stipe

In my opinion that isn't related to how much irrigation was applied on the Thursday. It is a combination of a number of challenging factors to manage. For example - how much do you apply? 5ml? 10ml? 12ml? You don't seem to disagree that am amount should have been applied. In my opinion the issue goes back before Thursday. We don't have full access to the daily water budget for the track. But if smaller amounts had been applied more regularly then that would negate the need for a large dollop all at once. One of the reasons you need to apply large amounts is when the track is dry you initially get run off and because of disparity in underlying soil and drainage some sections will get wet quicker hence the creation of fast and slow lanes. So ideally you keep the track and moisture level in a narrow soft range and THEN play the weather forecast closer to raceday. Perhaps they did that but because the top layer soil structure is stuffed you don't have much buffer to get it wrong. Well we did have some trainers joining the hundreds of experts. The track managers should be blamed the least for these issues. They are trying to manage tracks that have had no substantial renovation or annual maintenance investment for decades.

Research and an open mind.

Or look at the stopwatch?

If the choice is race on a Soft 6 or have a horse spend 12 hours in a float because the meeting was abandoned after Race 1 then I'd go for the Soft 6. However the reported ratings and other rating metrics (or lack of) are a nonsense and ultimately detract from the good efforts of track staff. Why didn't they upgrade the track rating later to what was obviously a Good 4?

Yeah well it wasn't a Soft 5 midway through the raceday.

The track seemed to play quite fair today.

That's exactly what the R75 last race at Riccarton was won in.

They went 1:33.89.

2:02 isn't too bad for an R75 2000m either!! Definitely was a Good 4 at least by then.

Geez judging by the time in the Guineas it's probably a G4 now.

Well got that wrong. If anything the track might be a Soft 7!!! Doesn't look as warm as forecast.

I thought you were going to get there @Freda. Would have been poetic justice given the out of order humourless comment from @billy connolly! Just beaten by a longer horse!

Swayzee is looking in good form.

Very good point about the saline. Do nitrate levels affect it as well? I suspect the Rating might be one point out which seems to be common for most track reports that we get. In the absence of penetrometer or Going Stick readings I can't see how the Track ratings can be anything but finger in the ground subjective guesses. So expect to see a one point upgrade after race one taking it to a Soft 5. Then a one point upgrade after race two - G4. Then a retrospective upgrade of another point in the Stewards report - G3. Everything will be a recommended G4 improving to a G3 by mid-afternoon. Which means it will probably end up a G2. The big question is - where is the fast lane and who knows where it is?

Meanwhile at Flemington:

No penetrometer reading. Have Clubs been advised to do away with this measure? Thinking about the moisture meter variation - wouldn't you have to take readings from the same spots for it to be accurate? Unlike the penetrometer the moisture meter would be influenced more by localised soil structure. On the flip side it is more likely to be affected by uneven irrigation.

Eh? When did they last calibrate their moisture meter? Nomination Morning Heavy 8 51.8% Withdrawal Morning Soft 7 50.9% Thursday Morning Soft 6 42.3% Friday Morning Soft 7 51.4% Raceday Soft 6 50.1%

So @Yankiwi do you have evidence that a "safety rail" reduces injuries? What type of safety rail? If one type of safety rail does reduce injuires - why?

It will race a bit fairer as the surface and sub-surface is more consistent across the width of the straight. However that is subject to wear and tear and where they place the rail. They missed a golden opportunity to reshape the course to make it fairer. The home straight entry and exits favour those on the inside. I've hated the exit for decades watching the Derby. They could have fixed that. The camber on the home turn drops away too soon. That's because they didn't realign the 2400m start - again the Derby. You have two options - you either wait for an inside rails run or start moving at the 600m to get handy. I don't care what anyone says the soil (if you could call it that) is basically pure sand. Essentially it is grass growing hydroponically. Which grass isn't suited to do hence the need for continual irrigation and verti-draining/coring.

I've walked it three times since it has been rebuilt. Got told to leave the last time. I have a view.

244m possible voters. But that isn't registered voters. Trump got 72m votes and it looks like the number of voters will nearly equal the record in 2020 which was a record 66% turnout. Part of being in a democracy is although you are expected to register (or enrol) to vote you don't have to cast a vote.

Then he needs to rethink quickly or we'll have another out of touch racing leader.

So obviously it isn't a horse welfare issue nor social license issue with you but one regarding some obscure relationship between a whip and the integrity of Black Type. Yeah that makes sense...not!

As for "social license" wasn't it within our lifetime that we saw religious groups banging drums and tambourines at racecourse entrances saying we would all go to damnation and hell. "Gambling was the devil's work." Wasn't there only a dozen protestors at this year's cup? They were a bit out numbered by the 92,000 on course up 7.3% on last year.

Lets face it the tracks we train and race on are a bigger horse welfare issue than a few whip strikes.