In Australian horse racing the four Melbourne racecourses stand out for their complete difference to each other — and the barrier draw is worth something different at every one. Statsman takes three of them in turn — Flemington, Caulfield and Sandown Park — start by start, and at one of them, in one kind of race, his advice is to ignore the draw completely. He publishes no sample and no strike rates, so take this as five years of one man's research set down as preferences — not as proof.
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What you'll learn:
- Flemington's straight-course sprints, and the call the episode turns on: Statsman's own theory is that you ignore the barrier draw there, because the going can vary markedly from rails to the outside and you can never really say that horses drawn from 16 to 24 are 'badly' drawn
- Flemington distance by distance — only about 250m from the 1400m chute before the big double turn, with horses outside 10 at a disadvantage; best barriers between 1 and 8 from the 1600m; 600m in which to settle over 2000m; and barrier positions relatively unimportant over the Melbourne Cup journey of 3200m
- Caulfield, where the draw does matter: a straight just under 320m, every chance for runners in barriers up to 9 in the 1000m and 1200m races, and the trickiest start of the lot at 1400m, where the disadvantages begin from barrier 8 out and any horse from 14 out is badly affected
- Sandown Park's really testing 407m straight — why a horse drawn wide in very slow or heavy going could well prove an advantage, and how the nice even 500m run to the first bend from the 1400m start changes the question again
The article is by Statsman, writing in Practical Punting, April 1986.
📘 FREE e-book — "Track Secrets Part 2": download it free and keep the full method beside you every race day 👉
https://pp.practicalpunting.com.au/track-secrets-p2/