Methven Feedback

[Newmarket]

A great day at Methven last Sunday, club really puts on a show. Best part was the new toilet block that has been built/ renovated, even has a room to sit in complete with tables and chairs outside, well done. 
Motukarara need to upgrade their loos, they are a disgrace. 
 

Food on course only average, used to provide burgers and other options, pretty basic, chips half cooked, had food later. 
 

Track….. well not sure what to make of it. Anything leading, trailing  or 3 deep won, nothing else really featured. 
Now, is it reason they have workouts, trails or horses testing that just use inside strip? Really needs to be looked at, I stopped betting after first 5 races. 
Didn’t help my bet of the day was involved in speed duel, both faded🤭

[mikeynz]

1 hour ago, Newmarket said:

A great day at Methven last Sunday, club really puts on a show. Best part was the new toilet block that has been built/ renovated, even has a room to sit in.

You meant to write, has another room to sit in now.

[the galah]

7 hours ago, Newmarket said:

 

Track….. well not sure what to make of it. Anything leading, trailing  or 3 deep won, nothing else really featured. 
Now, is it reason they have workouts, trails or horses testing that just use inside strip? Really needs to be looked at, I stopped betting after first 5 races. 
Didn’t help my bet of the day was involved in speed duel, both faded🤭

I think you just have to factor that in when you make a selection.

In my opinion a lot depends on the amount of use they get and what type of irrigation they get. 

If you were to walk some of those tracks you would see that the grass cover closer to the pylons is not as thick as that wider on the track. Thats because the more it gets used the less grass cover or thickness.Therefore it just makes sense that the less friction there is due to less grass cover,the faster you go. 

So in some ways it just can't be avoided.

also if you look at those irrigators that go in a circle, you see a slightly uneven spread.I don't know what happens at methven,but if they are placed in the middle of the track then with either rail normally being further away from the thing throwing out the water,the more chance of areas with not as much water landing on them. I've seen one track where sometimes they move the irrigators over a little to do both outside and inside of track,sort of doubling up on some areas of the track.The same applies to galloping tracks i've walked. There was one track in particular that was both harness and galloping and you used to see them come down the outside when it got wet because the irragator never did the outer part of the track.Obviously each caretaker is doing their best,but its maybe unrealistic to think you would get an even spread.

Also they raced a couple of cart widths out at methven on sunday. They did say they intended to mow closer to raceday but chose a more cautious approach and didn't,because of the expected rain. Tracks with longer grass tend to be harder to make ground on.

Also methven is about the only track that tries to accomodate trainers by allowing trials and workouts to be run on them regularly. No other club i can think of makes their track available like methven does. I know they try and have some of their workouts/trials run around the middle of the track to preserve the inside,but they still have to allow the qualifiers to run on the inside.Hats off to them for doing what they do as far as that goes.

Edited September 10 by the galah

[Newmarket]

3 hours ago, the galah said:

I think you just have to factor that in when you make a selection.

In my opinion a lot depends on the amount of use they get and what type of irrigation they get. 

If you were to walk some of those tracks you would see that the grass cover closer to the pylons is not as thick as that wider on the track. Thats because the more it gets used the less grass cover or thickness.Therefore it just makes sense that the less friction there is due to less grass cover,the faster you go. 

So in some ways it just can't be avoided.

also if you look at those irrigators that go in a circle, you see a slightly uneven spread.I don't know what happens at methven,but if they are placed in the middle of the track then with either rail normally being further away from the thing throwing out the water,the more chance of areas with not as much water landing on them. I've seen one track where sometimes they move the irrigators over a little to do both outside and inside of track,sort of doubling up on some areas of the track.The same applies to galloping tracks i've walked. There was one track in particular that was both harness and galloping and you used to see them come down the outside when it got wet because the irragator never did the outer part of the track.Obviously each caretaker is doing their best,but its maybe unrealistic to think you would get an even spread.

Also they raced a couple of cart widths out at methven on sunday. They did say they intended to mow closer to raceday but chose a more cautious approach and didn't,because of the expected rain. Tracks with longer grass tend to be harder to make ground on.

Also methven is about the only track that tries to accomodate trainers by allowing trials and workouts to be run on them regularly. No other club i can think of makes their track available like methven does. I know they try and have some of their workouts/trials run around the middle of the track to preserve the inside,but they still have to allow the qualifiers to run on the inside.Hats off to them for doing what they do as far as that goes.

Not good for punters, owners or trainers. Track is more suited to front runners more than Cambridge… that shouldn’t happen. 

[the galah]

13 hours ago, Newmarket said:

Not good for punters, owners or trainers. Track is more suited to front runners more than Cambridge… that shouldn’t happen. 

Like i said,when you know that you just have to factor it in.

Its like if you walk out the door of your house and walk over your lawn and check the mailbox  and walk to your car on the same path across the lawn every day.Eventually you will notice that theres less grass cover where you walk.

Its not so noticable when its dry when compared with the rest of the lawn but is moreso when the lawn is greener.

so you have about 140 horses running around next to the pylons each race meeting and methven is the club with the most grass track meetings. Say compare methven to banks peninsula. Methven have 1 more raceday,4 more trials and many more workouts than banks peninsula.on their grass track each year..Thats a lot more traffic.Now banks peninsula track will have a fuller cushion of grass on the inside,but an important part of the reason for that is because its not used as much.Simple as that.

I saw kerry o'reilly on unhinged say the horses come from the front because of of race tempo. That may be a factor,but in my opinion all anyone has to do is just go and walk a grass track and you will see what i mean.

 Thats why jockeys walk the track. They are looking for parts of the track that doesn't have the same level of grass cover or may have gotten a bit less water from irrigation or may have a slight contour of the land.With a harness track you have not only horse hooves but carts wheels going over the isnside part. 

 

 

Edited September 10 by the galah