Meydan

[Natagora]

The Dubai carnival starts on Thursday and fellow speed raters may or may not be aware that for the last couple of years, Nad Al Sheba has been an absolute goldmine. I think this has mainly because local horses who clock good times over C&D have been vastly overpriced against hugely underpriced British horses by a British driven betting market as there is no betting in the UAE for obvious reasons. Therefore, it is an excellent place to play speed rating bets in my book and I know Jamie will testify this! Gladiatorus, Big City Man, Snaafy, Eastern Anthem, Crime Scene will all big priced winners last year at the carnival who were locally trained and taking on British animals ignored by the British betting public and since nobody else really bets on Dubai racing, they form the market.

However, we now have a problem because Nad Al Sheba has been demolished and Meydan has taken it's place. It's dimensions are different and the dirt surface has been replaced by a synthetic Tapeta surface which is only used at Golden Gate Fields and Presque Isle Downs in the USA.

Meydan's dimensions are as follows....

ALL-WEATHER TRACK
Left Handed
Oval Distance: 1750 meters (8¾ furlongs)
Chute:
1500 meters
1600 meters
Width: 25 meters (approx. 82ft)
Banking on the turns: 6%
Banking on the straightaway: 1%
Distance from final turn to finish line: 400m (2 furlongs)

TURF TRACK
Left Handed
Oval Distance: 2400 meters (12 furlongs)
Chute:
1200 meters
2000 meters
Width: 30 meters (approx. 98ft)
Banking on the turns: 5%
Banking on the straightaway: 1.5%
Distance from final turn to finish line: 450m (2.25 furlongs)



Now comes the tricky part, translating this data into compiling projected standard times for the new course and possibly using the data from similarly laid out tracks and of course, Golden Gate Fields and Presque Isle Downs. Trouble is, I'm not too sure where to start, anybody have any ideas? If we work together on this, we could reap great rewards. I suspect Spook might have some ideas having read his Churchill and Greek assignments? Will he be able to move to another continent and get the ball rolling on the Middle-Eastern one? I do hope so because I'm struggling already, I know there is a section in Mordin on Time about compiling standard times but that's about it?

[andthereoff]

Natagora,

Here are a few names to researc;

William L. Scott - Ability Times
Tom Brohammer - Pace
Charles Carrol - Real Speed

There should be extracts from each author on how they create standards, I have no time at the moment but would like to contribute to this thread further at some point.

ATO

[Spook]

It's going to involve quite a bit of guesswork and hypothesis building. Mordin's piece is based compiling standards against known runs. At this stage we're blind and will have to do them in situ so to speak, so be prepared to revise them quite quickly.

In order you need to know the surface, topography and geometry to stand a chance.

The surface we know (park that for the time being).

The geometry is a mixed bag here.

I'm assuming its flat? I'm assuming the two American courses are flat too. We need to know how much different tapeta is to a benchmark (in this case we'll use turf as we can probably find better geometric matches). It's a horribly tight course though.

Start with the surface first. Get the standrad times and track records for Golden Gate Fields and Presque Isle Downs. Igf you can't get these then its probably mission impossible. Most American course websites have dedicated pages though with track records and standards on them if you trawl around. At the back of your mind however, try and think of a few flat turf tracks (actually they don't need to be turf) that have similar dimensions. You can mix and match different tracks to different distances, what's important is that you get track records and standards for both tracks and try and see what percentage difference exists. It's very hit and miss though, but logic will be on your side until such time as things settle down

[Spook]

Looking at it again, you might need to perform two conversions yet, but I'll come to that as when we need to.

Geometrically the 6F chute looks identical to Epsom (if anyone wants to much around with googleearth you can probably measure it - if Meydan is on it). Epsom's downhill though, so you'd need to take 3 or 4 turf tracks that are flat and use their 6F records to establish how much faster Espom is as a result of topography.

[Natagora]

I'm working tomorrow but off on Wednesday so intend to have a stab at this then.

Found the Golden Gate times from here;

[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

but no joy with Presque Isle and I suspect the track is a bit newer than GG. I was at Golden Gate Fields in November, I feel quite the mug for not paying more attention to the track. In fact, I may have a racecard lying around somewhere so may dig that out to see what useful info it has in it.

[Spook]

The chutes on a mile isn't it (can barely read the figures!!!)

This is going to be quite tough

The geometry of the track is very tight. We need to find something that closely matches it (ideally 2 or 3 tracks).

The first port of call would be Golden Gate and see how closely that aligns to the geometry. Looking at the track again, I'm not convinced we have a track in the UK that's useable. Wolverhampton wouldn't be too far away, but the horses that set a standard on that are going to be too poor. I'm half wondering if there isn't something in the far east that more closely resembles it? Sha Tin?

We might be able to get away with it if we can find records for a major American track on poly, and then see how the two surfaces compare by way of a percentage difference.

I think the most important think to do is find something with a similar layout.

[andthereoff]

I know its not left handed but for routes the standards at Longchamp could prove useful?





Milan?

Fair few decent runners over there

[Spook]

The left handed /right handed thing is a red herring for the purposes of this exercise. With a home straight of 2 F's I'm half inclined to nominate Fakenham!!!

I think Sha Tin might be worth looking at, try Tokyo and Kyoto too. Get the measuring stick out in Googleearth and see if we can find something that's 2 furlongs from the top turn to the finish or 1750 metres round

Sha Tin 1550 metres round

Lone Star Park?

[The Duke]

try kranji, singapore

[The Duke]

It is worth getting hold of a copy of today's Racing Post as they've got a decent Meydan Carnival pull-out in it which is certainly worth a read.

[Natagora]

Lone Star Park and Sha Tin look runners to me with run ins of 2f, have the problem with collecting times again though don't we? Lone Star Park's times should be a bit better than Golden Gate Fields, especially as they've hosted a Breeders Cup. E

ven Kempton is a possibility on the inside track as it's about 2 furlongs from the turn to the winning post, that would include all races over 5f and 1m2f but there are issues of quality there. I do however have all the times for Kempton for the past 12 months in an excel file so would save a lot of donkey work.

Any suggestions as to where to take this next Spook?

Sorry for needing a bit of direction, my mathematical intuition is about as good as your posting excel files on forums skills!

[Natagora]

Wolverhampton is another with a 2 furlong run in but issues with quality. The chute there is just over 7 furlongs too and it's left handed so it's quite close.

[Spook]

Don't worry, I've moved on from that and am bogged own on something else at the moment which is going badly tits up and needs to be handed in tomorrow. I fear the worst. But will try and get back to you tomorrow evening (which is probably today now)

[andthereoff]

Did those times today resemble those of Doncaster/Ascot in your opinion?

[Natagora]

It seems as though Meydan plan to provide sectional times for their races as there is a window on the results on the Emirates Racing Association site. This could help us get a handle on it a bit more.

The track seemed to be running quite slowly tonight with horses appearing to be finished tired.

[Spook]

It's probably going to make more sense to sit out a couple of meetings and then try and develop our own based on results. A/W tracks are notoriously trappy the first time they're laid down anyway

[The Duke]

Usually takes a while to bed down and get some consistency.

Great Leighs was the same when it was first race-able.

I'd take Nad Al Sheba any day though, wasn't overly impressed by the track at all - horses seem to have no chance racing wide, and plenty of trouble around the last bend.