Surface of a different color

[Tim Y]

Anyone who used the Sartin Methodology for any length of time realizes that it will NEVER be as effective on the grass as the main track.

The WHOLE nature of the "upside down" pace structure on the grass is part of the reason, the lack of accurate pace times another, the varying "give" of the course via weather, the differences in the "putting greens (of Del Mar) versus the deep courses like Arlington and Saratoga...... the tighter inner circumferences and narrower widths of most turf courses, the complete lack of circumference alterations at most turf after-thought courses (an after thought course is one that is rarely used and the turf horse population there is not sufficient to run on that surface, tracks like Mountaineer, Penn National, Turf Paradise, etc. that only card turf races a few times per week) on and on.

Until three years ago, I was in wonder how an alteration of LANE on the turf course was actually corrected by the track maintenance. Simple geometry says that the larger the radius of a circle (or in this case half a circle around the turn), the greater the circumference and there by the longer that lane has to be compensated by moving the gate to get the proper overall distance for the listed race.

The answer (at Woodbine and other major venues I was told by the stewards)
is in having alternate 1/8th poles that arranged at 5 different positions that exactly account for the variation of them when the lanes go from position zero (running right up against the permanent rail) to position 5 (way out in the lane). Each time the lane gets wider, the track maintenance people physically MOVE the 1/8th pole (and the timing sensor when we used Teletimer) as well as move the gate to compensate for very accurate measurements of the total distances.

The teletimer technician told me that this was worked out over a very carefully construed survey years ago that kept the overall distance of the contest the same start to finish no matter what lane they were running in. The after-thought tracks have no variations that I can see (and at the cost of this intervention would probably not want to support the price tag either) so when they move that rail to define another lane, how are we to know if the gate or any of the other timers have be altered accordingly? This allow that ONLY the "best guess" times AT THAT COURSE can be compared logically one to one.

Moving the lanes are obviously done to keep the course wear down and the total lack of that awareness in the "never ending" Gulfstream meeting should scare anyone away from that venue. As a trainer or owner, I would never let my horse run on that group of pot holes they call a turf course. Big venous like Belmont and Saratoga have the luxury of moving them around to the two turf courses. Scuttlebutt here (Woodbine) is that when the standardbreds leave permanently for Mohawk year round, that inner dirt track will become a second turf course. WHen that is exactly??