Curiouser And Curiouser
Tuesday's item on sectional times for Ipswich 431m races has aroused some consternation. And understandably so.
We said that the times had been allocated to the race winner, not necessarily the dog responsible for leading. That statement was based on a perusal of Ipswich results on the GRNSW-Ozchase website on Wednesday morning. Each sectional time appeared against the winner's name, as is the case on the error-ridden Tasmanian results pages. At that time, no videos were available on the page so crosschecking was impossible and we accepted the information in good faith.
Much later that day, or certainly now, those pages have been changed. The sectionals have been assigned to the correct dog and videos have suddenly appeared to confirm that.
So somebody updated the files. But questions remain – who did that and why? Who posted the original incorrect file? What data has gone into the individual dogs' career records?
The clear message is that if complete and accurate results are not available then put up nothing.
Incidentally, this trip boasts the highest percentage of leaders winning races in Australia – 66%. Averages elsewhere are around the 50% mark. That's nothing to be proud about, but simply a reflection of an unfair layout and the huge advantage of jumping clear on the disruptive bend start. Whatever happens at Logan, Bundamba, Albion Park or elsewhere, the Ipswich circuit should be re-aligned. The fix would not cost a huge amount of money.
An addendum. Tasmanian videos are available (if you try hard enough) on local Tasracing websites, but do not make their way onto the Ozchase pages where the “official” results are published. Why not? At least then anyone keen enough could make their own corrections to the misleading sectional data.
The outcome of all this is that OzChase is not only cumbersome to access but provides unreliable and/or incomplete information – surely a management failure.