WATERING.qxd:Jerkins feature.qxd
22/5/09
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RACING
W
E have all heard the old proverb “there are three important factors in horseracing: the ground, the ground and the ground”. Clerks are often criticised for watering too much or not enough. In some cases the critical voices are well founded, in others they are strongly biased, and in quite a few they are coming from people who have little or no experience with maintenance of turf racecourses. For instance, after a mild winter the grass will not be as strong as after a winter with plenty of frost in the ground, meaning that what was a good policy for watering one
year might not be the best policy twelve months later – even under what, at the time, seems to be similar circumstances. Only after the meetings, or at best when a few of the first races have been run, do we really know the true state of the ground. The official ground conditions are always published prior to the first race, based on the assessment made by the clerk, with or without the help of a penetrometer / going stick. This leads us to another interesting question. Does the penetrometer ‘talk differently’ when used on a course that has been artificially watered, than on a course that has been softened by natural rain? After all, watering of a course should ensure an
even distribution of water, while bands of rain sweeping across the course, following the wind, does not. Are the readings less meaningful after a thunderstorm? Agronomist Mike Harbridge of Professional Sports Turf Design in Preston, retained by a number of top racecourses in England, has plenty of experience with maintaining and preparing turf courses for watering. “The key to watering is that it is done uniformly, to make sure the ground is in a condition to take the watering”, he says, “and to put water on at a sensible rate. Most racecourse clerks want to put about 10mm on over the course of a normal working day.
WATERING RACECOURSES Geir Stabell investigates the complex issues behind producing perfect ground for racing
20 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com ISSUE 26