Track Wet Don't Bet?

Track Wet Don't Bet?I hate most "off" tracks.Last year at this time, though, I had a picnic with Riva San, getting 30/1 the Oaks and very juicy odds in the Derby as a dessert. She raced on genuinely heavy tracks, both wins being at a track that favoured her style of racing, Eagle Farm. So this seems a hypocritcal statement, yes?Well, no, because I take the view that a great many very good horses can handle genuinely heavy track conditions, so long as the footing is trustworthy. Shifty

Track Wet Don't Bet?

I hate most "off" tracks.

Last year at this time, though, I had a picnic with Riva San, getting 30/1 the Oaks and very juicy odds in the Derby as a dessert. She raced on genuinely heavy tracks, both wins being at a track that favoured her style of racing, Eagle Farm. So this seems a hypocritcal statement, yes?

Well, no, because I take the view that a great many very good horses can handle genuinely heavy track conditions, so long as the footing is trustworthy. Shifty tracks and bogs are frightening things, but genuine "heavy" is often OK.

Innocent until proven guilty, I say, where I have been waiting for a certain horse to reach a certain distance and it strikes a heavy track.

Frankly a "dead 5" and a "slow 6 or 7" can bother me more. They are indeterminate. A dead 4 is just off a perfect surface, and sometimes it is perfect, whereas when they hit that 5 button I get a bit edgy. If I am to have wet, let me have VERY wet. I at least know where I stand on that one.

So, if they get to race on Saturday at Doomben, I'm OK with horses that are:

(a) proven on heavy

and

(b) unknown on heavy.

I am NOT OK with horses that have failed badly (maybe unplaced twice in comparable class) in such conditions.

Innocent until proven guilty? With the right odds, and on a genuine 8 or 9, I'll accept that.

late note: The Doomben 10.000 on Saturday is a no-brainer at present. We may, however, learn something from it, IF it is actually run.