Flemington’s Straight Six Has Puzzled

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 695, 21 June 1929, Page 12

Flemington’s Straight Six Has Puzzled

INSIDE HORSES FAVOURED AN EVENING-LP PROCESS Has the problem of the straight six at Flemington been solved? The fact that all of the three races over this course on the programme of theVJLC. Birthday meeting were won by horses on the inside suggests that the conditions have at last been evened up. As all regular followers of racing know, horses drawn on the outside of the straight have appeared in the past to derive an advantage over those on the other side. The results pointed to it, at all events, for horses on the outer or stand side kept on winning with monotonous regularity. The anomaly was so evident at the last autumn meeting (says a Melbourne Writer), that Mr. A. V. Kewney, secretary of the V.R.C., determined to remove it' if possible, and ever since he has been working on the question—not* without some success, it would seem. Many Theories Although many theories have been advanced, one cause of the unevenness of conditions could be a greater growth of grass on the one side as compared with the other. After the last Newmarket one trainer suggested that perhaps the strip of turf on the inside of the straight received more water than that on the other. Certainly that part of it which is in use for other races would naturally receive greater attention, and thus might not be as firm and fast as that on the outside, where the heavy course traffic and the ambulance vans flattened the grass. The passage of the ambulance has been stopped, and the course rollers, and other implements now are taken over another track, so that the growth of grass on the outside is probably greater than before. Whatever has happened, it would at all events seem as if the outside or fast side of the track is now a good deal slower than before. Won on Wrong Side Those who at the Birthday meeting expected to see horses drawn on the stand side of the straight leading the fields received a surprise. Greener, in the Royal Handicap on the first day, came up the inside rail well ahead of his opponents, and, although he did not win, his conqueror followed him up that side. Clarius, in the two-year-old race, and Clarogale, in the Lancaster Handicap, were also* on the side that in the past used to be call€*d the “wrong” side. Whether Mr. Kewney has diseoveerd a remedy which will have lasting effects is a question that time alone will tell. It has been suggested that the evening-up process is the natural outcome of the winter growth of grass, and that the old conditions will obtain in the summer: but if a fault can be corrected in one season it ought to be possible to do it in another.

RACING FIXTURES JUNE 21. 22—Hawke's Bay J-C. 22—South Canterbury J.C. 29—Ashburton R.C. 29—Waverley R-C. JULY 10, 11. 13—Wellington R.C. 25 —Waimate Hunt. 25, 27—Gisborne R.C. 27 South Canterbury Hunt. AUGUST 3—Christchurch Hunt 3—Poverty Bay Hunt 13, 10, 17—-Canterbury J.C. 24—Papakura Hunt (at Ellerslie) 24—Hawke’s Bay Hunt . 28— Dannevirke R.C. 29 Dannevirke Hunt 31 —Taranaki Hunt SEPTEMBER 4, s—Marton J.C. 7—Otago Hunt 12, 14—Wanganui J.C. 21—-Ashburton R.C. 21—Napier Park R.C. 21, 23—Avondale J.C. 26, 27 —Geraldine R.C. 28-—Hawke’s Bay J.C. OCTOBER 2—Manawatu Hunt s—Kurow J.C. 5, 7—Auckland R.C. 10, 12—Dunedin J.C. 19—Masterton R.C. 24, 26—Poverty Bay J-C. 26, 28—Wellington R.C. 26, 28 —Waikato R.C. 28—Waverley R.C. 28—Waikato Hunt