I like the concept as it keeps greyhounds, who are looking for middle distance races, in work and something to aim for.

Rich.

Appreciate your sentiments and Richard it is a work in progress. Run the series see what actually comes of it. Talk to participants encourage trainers to communicate with the club what they desire.

Richard it is a start and like they say have to start somewhere..

This post is spot on the money. Ballarat may just be the start or kick along for trainers that looking for a graded distance race. now if we can find 4 new distance dogs each week slowly we create a pool of distance stock.

Handicap racing always attracted big betting pools ....

Maidens should be encouraged so its a bit disappointing for Ballarat to not to include these dogs under Novice.. 0 to 1 or 0 to 2 wins ...

It great to see a forward thinking Club take the bull by the horns ...well done

Slowest 8 & Fastest 8 over the 3 weeks progress to slowest 8 and fastest 8 final.

RESULTS WEEK 1 3 HEATS

SLOWEST 8. (S)

EDDIE 39.149 s
CLOSE YOUR EYES 39.094 s
SO TOUGH 38.824 s
SUPER BLU 38.754 s
CABIN FEVER 38.736 s
GARDENERS BOYO 38.646 s
MIDNIGHT TITAN 38.628 s
CAVEMAN YAP 38.489 s

BLACK SPRING 38.453
DOUBLE SUPREME 38.335
BRONELLY JET 38.326

FASTEST 8. (F)

SHIMA MIST 38.249 F
BLACK CANVAS 38.248 F
SEVE ROSE 38.215 F
KEEPER OF KEYS 38.163 F
MIDNIGHT MYSTERY 37.931 F
ROCKSTAR PRINCE 37.870 F
ROCKSTAR BEAV 37.758 F
UP AND ABOUT 37.682 F

All in all an excellent nights racing.

"I went along and had a look at this meeting and fwiw my take was that there were 19 dogs competing in 3 heats (not good for betting turnover) there was a fair bit of interference before the first turn in the three races, otherwise it was simply India file for the rest of the journey - good racing?
Of the 19 dogs that started only 5 dogs improved their position throughout the races. 3 or 4 didnt make the teir 3 time and a couple went on
relatively close to the track record. These were not new to the staying ranks There didnt appear to be too many budding states as most had made an effort Successfully or otherwise over longer distance sprints I would be keen to hear about the 4 rising stars discovered this week".

This is pretty right. Even though a couple ran pretty good time these are not champions in the making. Rather they are average/fair dogs which occasionally get a good run and win the odd race, often when they get the fly out of the boxes.

Otherwise, I applaud Ballarat for trying something a little different but Rome was not built in a day. It will also be difficult to get a line on them as they are hitting the bend too soon after the jump - thereby hampering the moderate beginners. And similarly at Bendigo, Warrnambool, Shepparton, Sandown and Meadows.

Additionally, at least 7 runners were backing up after 4-5-6 days, which further confuses the issues (0ne was a $2.40 fav and looked weary to me).

If we are trying to promote more and better distance racing it has to be addressed on a 5 year basis with due attention to breeding and training expertise. Quick cash on its own is not enough.

While I am here, it is worth mentioning other odd aspects of Shepparton performances.

Normally, GRV now posts winning boxes only for the last 12 months. In the olden days you could see them for several past years but, for unknown reasons, they changed the system. Consequently, the most popular distance is not too bad but data for anything else is pretty useless. Naturally the Italian Plastic time will probably not last too long - it is one of only 71 385m races at the moment but winners are tending to come from the inside division.

Of more concern are the 450m box figures. The best two boxes are 8 (96 of 539) followed by 3 (81). The worst two are 1 (58) and 5 (57). This is highly unusual and indicates something seriously wrong with the layout.

Roughly, this disparity conforms to the track's fairly high Fall rate, although most of those occur over the shorter trip. Figures for the long trip are too small to use.

For reasonable accuracy, you need a minimum of 500 samples and preferably 1,000. (This is why you see election forecasts based on 1,000 to 2,000 samples).

if shep drop ins did what has been claimed they would there should have been a marked improvement in running to the first turn even after 71 races but this should be confirmed by a greater sample. but if its the luck of the box draw that's still in play perhaps it doesn't look good. - seems a level playing field is only for cobalt offenders

antony green doesn't call too many election results before 7 oclock but there is often a "gut feeling

earlier on this thread peter griffin raised concerns about the removal of the non slip fixed matting in front of the permanent boxes that is not in front of the drop ins, it seems that back muscle injuries could be expected to rise. - I suspect grv don't keep figures on the 300 mtr drop ins at healsville and associated issues

Yes, sorry - that post was meant for another thread. I transferred it there but it has not been printed.

I mentioned elsewhere an occasion when Moss Vale installed supergrass on top of the bare sand. That improved times by the order of 0.40 to 0.50 (over the 500). I suppose it also depends on how they look after the sand/loam. If it is not on the track proper it will not get beaten down much so the purchase of the paws would be problematical. They could well slip around.

Healesville I don't know about but, again, that 300m area is subject to normal track maintenance. (Note that the record speed achieved over 300m is actually much slower than the track record speed over 350m. However, this is misleading as the former was run in 2013 and latter in 2019 - apples and oranges).

See also Horsham 410m drop-in. In that case, it was done on the recommendation of UTS but the Shep case is identical. I have no idea why placing the boxes close to the rail would help - quite the reverse - but UTS found a reason. Possibly climate change?

Somebody should be able to talk about injury type and location at Horsham as there has been plenty of racing there.

In any event, I found no problem with the old Horsham 410m start, which was well away from the rail and was itself done as part of a reconstruction project. That is now money wasted, to say nothing about the extra expense of building drop-ins and buying another tractor.

Also I recall no special commentary about the slide-in 600m start at the old Geelong circuit. Obviously, that would have involved a jump straight onto the loam.

Anyway, the interesting bit is that Italian Plastic's speed rate for 385m is actually slower than the rate of the previous (390m) record - 17.96 m/s v 18.05 m/s (for Gotta Bandit in Oct 2018). It does not sound like much but the absence of supergrass could account for something.

Bulli 400m (GBOTA) also did it for a while but dumped it and returned to fixed boxes off the track a little.

The underlying reasons for all these changes are rarely stated by authorities but that's par for the course these days.