Media Release- abandoned race meeting

Having carefully considered all the options, Gold Circle regrets to announce that the racemeeting which was meant to be held at Scottsville Racecourse on Sunday, 28 October, has been officially abandoned.



"The track is heavy, more rain fell during the late afternoon and to make matters worse the forecast is for rain throughout the week, only clearing from Friday," said Racing Director Graeme Hawkins. "We hope to race as scheduled on Saturday, 3 November but the possibility of postponing to Sunday, 4 November cannot be ruled out," he added.



Following the number of meetings already lost in recent weeks, management of Gold Circle is acutely aware of the need for replacement fixtures and a decision has been made to add racemeetings on Wednesday, 7 November and Sunday, 2 December, programmes for which will be issued in due course.



"Rainfall since the beginning of September has vastly exceeded the average in both the Eastern Cape and KZN and the interruption to racing and training programmes is proving very frustrating for all stakeholders," concluded Hawkins.

Interesting the points made by this release and Craig Eudy's protestations that the planningt for Greyville was based on averages for the last 25 years.
It would appear that Gold Circle need to rethink their method of forecasting:
a)with the common knowledge that weather patterns are changing,using any statistics further back than 10 years is just crazy,in fact the last 5 years are probably most valuable.
b)the term "average" is mentioned,here and by Craig,and this will lead to misleading forecasts.
EG.lets say the SEPT rainfall figures(for demonstration purposes only)over the last five years are :
2007:50mm
2008:60mm
2009:70mm
2010:80mm
2011:90mm

using averages you would predict 2012 @ 70:mm (350mm divided by 5)
& using trending you would estimate 2012 @ 100:mm (each year rainfall is increasing by 10mm)

Perhaps it is understandable why using averages tends to be misleading,particularly if you go back too far into history

It won't avoid abandonments,but may well help planning!

I will try get the last 5 yrs rainfall and see how it changes our view on things. Could be interesting anyway.

Regardless of isolated results,trending is generally a more accurate forecast method...........and in fact using both would probably give a useful pointer to the band between "best" and "worst" case scenarios.

Craig or anyone else, do you know where one can get rainfall figures for various parts of the country? I need something like this for my work but have so far searched in vain.

Weather not usual though.
Had the mother of all storms last evening around 6 and drizzled all night.

For the last 20 days , I think we only had 3 days of complete sunshine. Yesterday was extremely hot but the heavens opened up in the evening

In the bible it says "it rained for 40 days and forty nights and they called it a disaster" in Scotland they call if frigin Summer!

agra Wrote:

---

> Weather not usual though.
> Had the mother of all storms last evening around 6
> and drizzled all night.
>
> For the last 20 days , I think we only had 3 days
> of complete sunshine. Yesterday was extremely hot
> but the heavens opened up in the evening


That is the whole point Agra.........averages tell you what is normal............which is useless during abnormal times!

Guys how come more meetings are abandoned in SA than the UK year round...:S

i walked greyville racecourse on sunday and it was in magnificient condition bar the strip that the tunnel is being built underneath ...i couldnt keep my footing slipping on my aas on a number of ocassions...i wonder if having a tent or a cover over it might help with some type of heating device ...im no groundsman but a pity we cant race there as the balance of the track is top class ...

Mav......................Hope this may be of a little help to you!?......


Under " specialist info ". ( at bottom of home page ) ..you will find " Historic Rainmaps"....has very detailed figures for the last 10 years...up to 10th October 2012.....





South African Weather Service


www.weathersa.co.za/