20/06/16
Last Saturday’s Ipswich Turf Club meeting showed yet again that Justracing is simply light years ahead of all the passive and patronizing mainstream media crew. For nearly 12 months this website has been exclusively advising the thoroughbred racing industry that the Ipswich course proper is “rooted.” And right on cue, the whole world got to view just how “rooted” it is when in what I’d call “an absolute and utter disgrace” the Ipswich course proper had to be downgraded by stewards after four races when no rain even fell at the joint.
The response in The Sunday Mail yesterday was to simply seemingly apportion blame to stewards by noting, “Stewards were slow to downgrade the (Ipswich) track yesterday after going up with a Good 4. Tiders (sic – that’s what even visiting Ipswich once a year can do to you) suggested early on that it was worse than that. Jeff Lloyd said it was racing like a soft 6….”.
But why didn’t The Sunday Mail approach the Chairman of the Ipswich Turf Club, or even the Ipswich Turf Club CEO on Ipswich Cup day, as the latter certainly had plenty to say about the meeting to the media in the days leading up to the Ipswich Cup race day and ask one or both of them what is wrong with the track, or at least ask why – after a couple of weeks of virtually fine weather, why the racing public of Australia were dished up a track that was not a level playing field to all runners? Obviously that story was put in the too hard file by The Sunday Mail, whose stablemate newspaper The Courier Mail has gone in to bat for the Ipswich Turf Club yet again today seeking “approval on what looks a risk-free redevelopment” of their what I’d call “flood prone and undermined land which they got for $1 (in words so there’s no confusion here that’s one dollar) from government some years back”. Given the land was so cheap at just $1, one could reasonably ask the question, “Why doesn’t the Ipswich Turf Club have the reserves from over one and a half centuries of operation to fund its own redevelopment”? So the upshot of all the aforesaid is that following today’s The Courier Mail pro-active story pushing for the Ipswich Turf Club to get some funding assistance, that outhouse assistant newspaper has now given Ipswich Turf Club re-development a positive mention twice in five days. Maybe whilst The Courier Mail newspaper is so concerned about promised funding to the thoroughbred sector, that hasn’t come to fruition, or is in “a holding pattern”, they could do some investigative journalism and find out when the Queensland greyhound industry will get their new track which had $10million budgeted for it 10 or 15 years ago, after the Parklands greyhound track at the Gold Coast was resumed by government? That’s the new greyhound track that former Racing Queensland All Codes Board Chairman, Kevin Dixon, stated a couple of years prior to the Labor government sacking Dixon’s Racing Queensland All Codes Board, would be built “by Christmas”. We just need to know exactly what “Christmas” that would be.
When a track is “rooted” like Ipswich has been for ages, I ask were a couple of horses, ridden by senior jockeys, put over the Ipswich course proper on Saturday morning before the “good 4” rating was put up on race morning at scratching deadline time? Did stewards attend the Ipswich Turf Club early Saturday morning and inspect the track before the rating of “good 4” was issued? And if they didn’t inspect the track on race morning – then why didn’t they? There could be another story for The Sunday Mail in that little gem. So punters, owners, trainers and jockeys weren’t presented with a level playing field by the Ipswich Turf Club on Ipswich Cup day 2016. In fact given the way that owners and punters get treated with biased thoroughbred tracks all around Australia, it’s the wonder the industry even survives. How bizarre is it that as an owner you could own, or as a punter you could back, the best horse in the race, but track bias, or staying over on the rail which is supposedly the shortest way home around a racetrack is the only place your horse cannot stay and win.
The Ipswich Turf Club course proper had a lot of money spent on it by the Kevin Dixon led Racing Queensland All Codes Board and the club – simply by what I’d call “more arse than class” – have got through many race meetings over the last 12 months because of South-East Queensland’s prolonged dry spell. Can you imagine the debacle that could have unfolded at the Ipswich track last Saturday if one or more showers had fallen during the meeting?
So that’s now two Saturday’s in a row that the thoroughbred racing industry during the “showcase” period of a Brisbane Winter Carnival has had to put up with racetracks that do not race up to their race morning scratching deadline track rating. Eagle Farm should have been downgraded on Stradbroke day on a fine day – but wasn’t, now Ipswich shouldn’t have needed downgrading on a fine day – but was.
Speaking on RadioTAB yesterday morning, jockey Jim Byrne stated the inside of the Ipswich course proper was “way too soft”, noting “we” (the jockeys presumably and/or the Jockeys Association, but the two interviewers didn’t bother asking who “we” referred to) “have been telling them for ages” (not to be overprotective on the inside). Byrne noted that the right place to be on the day was out wide where the track had been raced on, in recent times – not where it had been protected over on the inside.
And whilst we’ve never met, Damian Browne and yours truly share a special bond, namely a preference of avoiding the Ipswich Turf Club at all costs. The Courier Mail noted on Friday morning that, “Browne rarely ventures to Ipswich, having ridden there only twice in the past five years…..” So Damian Browne has good success on Ipswich Cup day the last couple of years, but astutely chooses not to go anywhere near the place most of the time.
But rather than just bag something, what I decided to do was look for a possible solution and to that end, I researched the rail placement for the last 10 race meetings that had been conducted at both the Ipswich Turf Club and the Toowoomba Turf Club prior to last Saturday’s meeting. And as a matter of interest, both tracks raced a similar number of times in recent weeks – 10 times between 23/3/16 and last Saturday, so pretty much once a week over a near three-month timeframe.
DATE
RATING
RAIL
Friday – 3.6.16
Good 4
9mts (1600-1200) –10mts remainder
Wednesday – 25.5.16
Good 4
8.5mts
Wednesday – 18.5.16
Good 3
6.5mts
Friday – 13.5.16
Good 4
4.5mts
Saturday – 7.5.16
Good 4
2.5mts
Monday – 2.5.16
Soft 7/Soft 6
0.5mts
Wednesday – 20.4.16
Good 3
6mts
Friday – 15.4.16
Good 4
4mts
Wednesday – 6.4.16
Good 3
2mts
Wednesday – 30.3.16
Good 4
TRUE
.
And the Toowoomba rail placements at their 10 meetings prior to last Saturday’s meeting were as follows:
DATE
RATING
RAIL
Saturday – 11.6.16
Good 4
TRUE
Saturday – 4.6.16
Soft 7
5mts/4mts
Saturday – 28.5.16
Good 4
TRUE
Saturday – 21.5.16
Good 4
5mts/2mts
Saturday – 14.5.16
Good 4
2mts
Saturday – 7.5.16
Good 4
TRUE
Saturday – 23.4.16
Good 4
3mts (1800-280) – TRUE REMAINDER
Saturday – 16.4.16
Good 4/Good 3
TRUE
Saturday – 2.4.16
Good 4
5mts
Thursday – 24.3.16
Good 4
4mts/2mts
So as you can see the Ipswich Turf Club had the rail in the true position only once in their 10 meetings prior to last Saturday (10%) whilst the Toowoomba Turf Club had their rail in the true position four times (40%) – and true for part of the course on one other occasion (23/4/16 meeting).
So as an outsider looking in – and following my usual high quality research – you can be the judge as to whether jockey Jim Byrne may have a valid point about the rail placement at Ipswich and the club being over-protective of the inside section.
Lindsay Gallagher’s normal rails bookmaking segment will return here on Monday 4 July. Today on www.brisbaneracing.com.au website there’s a story on the horse that has won 29 races overseas that’s coming to stand in Australia. And there’s also a story on a pacer that some of the Canberra Raiders players own that is racing at a New South Wales country meeting tomorrow.
