Vaal Sand ...... POOR !!!!

Its been a couple of weeks now ! the vaal sand has been running really heavy
Last week was the heaviest i have seen it ! the last race , an 1800 was run in over 119 sec . thats about 20 lengths slower than normal .

The groundsmen should water the track a lot more than what they have been in weeks gone by . Its really not acceptable the way they prepare it , whats the point of preparing it as heavy as they do .

Lets see how it runs tomorrow ? If this trend continues i won't be punting on this surface .

I'm not sure why the state of the track makes a difference to you as a punter - it's the same for all horses :S

frodo


so a horse likes to run on form going and another horse runs on soft going


sand same thing.....simple really

BUT

this issue for the "punter" is the inconsistency of the surface and the LACK of information as regards the state of the track.

So if it is running slow then it should be published......or fast

Ok - so some horses would perform better on a 'heavy' sand track, than a 'light' sand track - but we never know the state of the track - makes sense (tu)

Thats right and because we don't know the state of the track its difficult to work out a good performance or a poor performance.

Thats why i gave up Vaal Sand punting/tipping! 1 or 2 years back i was addicted to Vaal Sand racing...but for me when that started happening it was just a no go.....also hope they get around to solving that

I would suggest that the state of the track is not the real problem - all tracks are affected by weather - the problem is rather the lack of info on the state of the track; on the turf we know the state of the going and the penetrometer reading - should not be that difficult to determine and publish the state of the sand track :S

Frodo Wrote:

---

> I would suggest that the state of the track is not
> the real problem - all tracks are affected by
> weather - the problem is rather the lack of info
> on the state of the track; on the turf we know the
> state of the going and the penetrometer reading -
> should not be that difficult to determine and
> publish the state of the sand track :S


fully agree with you...as that 'standard' that they kept on putting up was pure bullshit and clear for all too see

Frodo what u say makes sense., However i have been following this track for years and it does make a difference . When the track is heavy the results are erratic , i don't know why, but thats been my observation.

One has to sympathise with the groundsmen though as it is very time consuming and labourious to prepare .Its tricky for them because if rain is predicted they go easy on the watering , if the rain does not come then they stuck with a heavy sufrace and vice versa . I just hope they water the track a little more so as to ensure a standard racing surface !

Been shouting this ever since I joined ABC... it is absolutely farcical that for every sand meeting the going is reported as standard. There is no such thing as standard. But nobody wants to listen or do anything about it, just one of the reasons I think the racing authorities and whoever is directly responsible need to pull their heads out of their @rses and provide proper information to the punting public. The reason they don't I can only conclude is down to sheer blardy laziness and the "why should I give a sh1t" attitude that all too often prevails Seriously, how long would it take...? how hard is it to know the difference between light n fluffy n heavy ffs...? Absolutely blardy unbelieveable. Rant over.

And now somewhat calmer... LG did an excellent comment or two on this a while back but I can't remember the name of the thread or exactly what was said. He MAY have said it is not so much weather/water affected but "repairs" that needed doing and were in motion, I can't remember and not heard anything since. Anyone know the title of that thread?

Englander Wrote:

---

> And now somewhat calmer... LG did an excellent
> comment or two on this a while back but I can't
> remember the name of the thread or exactly what
> was said. He MAY have said it is not so much
> weather/water affected but "repairs" that needed
> doing and were in motion, I can't remember and not
> heard anything since. Anyone know the title of
> that thread?


Can't recall the title of the thread, but as I remember it was mentioned that 'compactors' were ordered from overseas, then when the one arrived it was not made 'to specifications' and was returned - not sure what the current state of play is :S