TURF FIGURES? JERRY

[high roller]

hi, do the thoro figures take into account when the rail is at 30 feet or zero feet etc?

[TGJB]

What? They use different rails on the turf?

The short answer is yes, we do. The long answer is, well, long. But the answer is yes.

[dodie]

Jerry
  I\'d love to hear the \"long explanation,\" when you get the chance.

[TGJB]

Dodie-- I have to write ROTW (San Pasqual) and do a lot of other stuff today. Try a search under \"turf figures\" or something like that, if you don\'t find anything I\'ll do it over the weekend.

[dodie]

TNKS JERRY

[TGJB]

ROTW went faster than I thought, so--

1-- If you have just one grass race on the day, you are going to do it off the horses in that race, so it doesn\'t matter what the rails are. If you are going to compare two races on the same day, you need to know it\'s apples to apples, so you need to know what\'s going on if you are going to combine them. Some places use turf rails, but run exact distances. In those places the rail doesn\'t matter, but

2-- NYRA (for example) uses turf rails, and runs exact distances. Certain rails create unusual run-up situations-- specifically, for the inner turf 1 1/16th, since with no rail the gate gets backed up almost to the back of the chute, leaving only a very short run-up. This changes the relationship between that race and those at other distances-- not because of the rail, because of the resultant run-up.

3-- I touched on this before in a response to CH, but turf figures are different than dirt figures. For starters, the pace is much slower, so there are more races where the final time is not \"true\" (resulting in \"s. pace\" races). Fortunately, grass horses are EXTREMELY consistent, and usually run in tight ranges. This makes it easy-- you go by the horses within a race if they have a significant grass history, and don\'t have to extrapolate to any serious degree

4-- EXCEPT in unusual situations, like when the only grass race on the day is for 2yo maidens that have never run on grass. Depending on the situation, you might just be screwed, which is when I leave a box. But if I am going to extrapolate, I\'m going to make damn sure that I\'m dealing with apples in both cases-- same grass course (not inner/widener), both exact distances, similar run-ups, no major differences in pace, etc.

5-- In general, they do less to grass courses than dirt, which means if there is no weather between days, they are more likely (but far from a sure thing) to stay about the same same speed. If I\'m in a situation where I need to use surrounding days, I would prefer that the course be the same speed for the days on both sides. If I don\'t have that-- or if weather on one side screws things up-- I won\'t tie it to just one day unless doing that also fits well with the dirt figures the horses have run.

The two sides of the house I can see are white. Make as few assumptions as possible.

[SoCalMan2]

Wouldn\'t the location of the rails affect the split timing?  I mean the quarters and halves would be at different locations than where the fixed timing beams are I would think. Put yet another way, if the rails are out, is the 5/8 pole really the 5/8s pole?  While in general I do not pay so much attention to this, I would think it has an impact in determing whether a turf race had a slow pace or a fast pace.  I am accustomed to some tracks that throw up split times that are so obviously wrong that even the announcer says the split has to be wrong in the middle of calling the race.  Assuming my assumptions are correct (which can get people into a lot of trouble), how do you know if the pace is slow or fast when the rails are out?  Also, is the value of a lane different at different circumferences?  I mean if you go one lane wide at charlestown is what you lose by going wide the same amount in relation to what one loses by going one lane wide at Belmont?  My intuition suggests that one lane wide at Charlestown is a lot worse than one lane wide at Belmont -- just think about huge turns like the equator...it would be hard to say that one lane wide would make such a difference there whereas on a short indoor track one lane can make a huge difference,  Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere in the archives.

[bobphilo]

SoCal,

Good question about the moveable rail affecting split times. I\'ve often wondered about that myself. Thanks for asking.
As far as ground loss on turns, I had posted about that a while ago. The short answer is the ground loss from each path is the same regardless of the size of the track. While it may appear to have a greater effect with tight turns, increasing the radius of a circle (distance from the rail) a certain amount will increase the circumference (distance traveled) the same amount, regatrdless of the size of the circle. Jerry counts a length for each path wider at all tracks. I believe that\'s correct, right Jerry? The detailed answer should be in the archives.

Bob

[TGJB]

Socal-- Bob is right about the paths. On the temp rails, most of the places that use rails but exact distances have different electric eyes that (theoretically) measure exact fractional distances for each set of rails. When it\'s screwy you can usually see it (it\'s obvious). But in in the end, as I posted in my original lengthier response to CH months ago, the key is just to go by the horses, because grass horses are so consistent. I would point out that this is a much bigger issue for Timeform because European races often have crawling paces, over hills, during short meets where there are only a couple of races at the same distance. Very tough, but their figures are pretty solid-- and pretty much ignore final time.