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All Weather Notes.

These notes are additional to the Turf notes      Course and distance menu      Race Of The Week  
Down to Southwell going description     Wolverhampton going description

Age groups.  Any analysis should use the best data available, and good sized samples.
As with the turf draw advantage analysis, the best available data is the results of races for horses aged 3 yrs or older.

Testing.
All draw advantage recommendations on this web site are normally tested on future races before being promoted to the Stalls To Follow A list, or being put forward in the Race Of The Week feature.
This testing can often be picked up in the comments for individual draw advantage charts, when a series of  recent results have strongly favoured a few stalls, but the comments advise caution until more results confirm the pattern.
Also the Stalls To Follow B list is a "Wait and see" list, of draw advantage patterns awaiting more results pending a stronger recommendation.
Any system operator (or tipster if you like) can appear to produce a winning formula using results of past races.
The acid test for any information or tips is to successfully predict winners in future races on a regular basis.
The success of the Stalls To Follow list is due in no small part to ongoing testing of recommendations and selection of the most reliable high percentage draw advantage patterns over long timescales.
Testing on future races is how success with these draw advantage recommendations is achieved.

Sample sizes and time scales.
Although the sample sizes are quite large for some course and distances, the time scales are short, making these short term trends.  The longest All Weather time scale shown is for the Lingfield results.
Southwell had drainage relayed and was resurfaced using existing fibresand plus fibresand taken from Wolverhampton.
Work was completed November 2004.
Wolverhampton was resurfaced in October 2004.
The charts for those 2 courses show results from Oct 2004.
Lingfield charts cover races from March 2004.
Kempton started All Weather racing in March 2006.

Results will be shown on the Overview web page, and draw advantage charts will be updated periodically.

Multiple charts.
Results are now being split into Summer and Winter charts.
There are quite large numbers of results on some AW charts.
To keep things clear, and also to give an indication of the progress of the draw where an advantage or disadvantage has been identified, results will be entered on multiple charts.
This may also show us if winter results differ from summer results.
The use of summer and winter charts for Southwell has identified a settling of the course or the drains on the straight 5F course during the first winter of 2004/5.
Although the going is nearly always described as Standard, there appears to be some effect caused by Standard/fast and Standard/slow going which could be related to frost, rain, drought, etc.
We will see if this is related to summer and winter  seasons.
Nothing further may come of this, but it is worth a look.

Updates.
The intention is to update charts throughout the winter at the end of each calendar month.
On the horizon are new AW courses at  Newbury, Great Leighs in Essex (Feb 2007), and Musselburgh.
Lets hope there are good draw advantages there as well.

Stalls To Follow amendments.
A note will be shown of any changes on the AW Stalls To Follow page, so that a history of the changes can be seen.

The origins of All Weather surfaces (Sept 2005).
Martin Collins claims to have developed Polytrack at his smallholding in Bracknell, Berkshire, some five miles from Ascot.
Things have progressed over the past 18 years, and Martin may have recently reached an agreement to build a training track at Keeneland in the USA.
Polytrack accepted in the land of the dirt tracks - well done that man !

Southwell Going.
During November 2005 the going at Southwell was described in Raceform race returns and on the Sporting websites as Standard./Fast, and Standard/Slow.
The Nov 29th forecast going on teletext was Standard, but in race returns the going was described as Standard/Slow.
I am indebted to Mr. J. Pullin, Clerk Of The Course at Southwell for the following excellent explanation of the work involved in maintaining the track and producing accurate going descriptions November 30th 2005 :-

"The going descriptions Standard to Fast and Standard to Slow were introduced about 18 months ago.
We as All Weather Clerks of the Course, and especially on fibresand, felt that there were many occasions when the track was riding on the quicker or slower side of Standard but neither of the only other going descriptions available, Slow or Fast.
Therefore the new descriptions were adopted and approved by the Jockey Club.

Recently at Southwell, during this cold spell, the track has had to be worked during the night (harrowed at various depths) to prevent the track freezing and becoming unraceable.
Because of the work that has to take place during the night and the fact that we have to work the track at deeper depths than normal it invariably rides slower / deeper than usual, therefore we tend to start the day with a description of Standard to Slow to indicate this.
We use times as a guide to how the track is riding and will alter the going as and when the times show the track to be riding faster or slower.
The moisture content in the track dictates how quick the surface will ride and as the track is rolled and harrowed following each race it can often quicken up during the course of a meeting.
To prevent the surface riding too quickly and therefore increasing the possibility of injury to horses, we sometimes carry out deeper harrowing to "slow" the surface down again, although we would never carry out deep work during a fixture.

As for yesterday (Nov 29th 2005), we had worked the track from 3.30am because temperatures had dipped below zero, so as an indication of that work taking place I started the day on Standard to Slow.
Walking the course prior to racing I felt that the surface had rolled back down quite well (due to the moisture content) but left the description until after the first race when the time indicated that the surface was riding as Standard.
I then changed the description to Standard."

Results shown on this website will use official going descriptions from Raceform returns and The Racing Post website.

Wolverhampton going.
My enquiries reveal that Wolverhampton prepare the course with the aim of starting meetings with Standard going, 
Usually, an early race of 7F or shorter is then assessed on it's merits by the Wolverhampton staff, taking into consideration age, distance and time.
Whilst the going description may change after race 1 or 2, any change in the going description would usually apply from the start of racing.
Official race returns sometimes show what appears to be a going change after 1 or 2 races. See Oct 14th 2006.

Finally - The comments I have made for each course and distance, are only my interpretation of the results shown on the charts.
I am only one person who has done an analysis.  You may well see something that is blatantly obvious which has been missed.  Interpretation of graphs is quite often a matter of opinion as to what the data means.
Your interpretation is just as good as anyone else's.
Armed with the information provided here, I hope you now feel -

you are now an expert on the subject of all weather draw advantages.

Copyright © 2006 [Howard Hutchinson]. All rights reserved.