For 23 long years stayers at The Meadows have been racing over the wrong distance
It is a story you wouldn't believe and yet a 23 year long history is currently being rewritten in Australian greyhound racing, all for the want of a $32.00 walk-along measuring wheel.
Bunnings Australian hardware stores sell the cheapest walk-along measuring wheel for just over $32.00. The most expensive ‘professional' model is $145.00.
A measuring wheel is one of those wheels you can walk alongside that fairly accurately measure the distance you have walked.
It is reasonable to suggest from a recent announcement that for 23 years no one at The Meadows or Greyhound Racing Victoria (GRV) owned one.
The current stayers boxes at The Meadows have been in place since 1999 and for all that time it has always been known as a 725m distance that greyhounds had to race over.
Well no longer.
The Meadows and GRV have announced that “following a survey of the track, it has been found that the 725m journey has been incorrectly labelled since the inception of the Broadmeadows site”.
Yes you read that correctly. The Meadows staying distance has been wrong from day one of operation.
The 725m distance has always been a 730m distance.
The immediate thought is “How do two commercial entities like The Meadows and GRV get something so fundamental to a greyhound track so wrong?”
Surely someone at some point would have been paid to walk the track with the $145.00 ‘professional' walk-along measuring wheel?
The answer could only be:
- 1. No
- 2. Yes – but they got it wrong
or
It is likely we will never know the answer.
GRV and The Meadows will not be changing any of the historical track or sectional split records, just the distance assigned to them.
The 41.933 track record set by Space Star in 2015 will continue stand. It will now be a 730m track record not a 725m track record.
Similarly, the first split record of 4.82 set by Fernando's Quest earlier this year will remain.
So how does this mistake happen? Neither GRV nor The Meadows chose to assign blame.
But they do credit the recent addition of the Isolynx Tracking System for the discovery of the 23-year-old error saying they became “aware of a discrepancy in the data related to the distance travelled by greyhounds in 725m races and took the appropriate steps to rectify the inaccuracy”.
All prior form guides, records, statistics, and data will be changed from 725m to the now ‘accurate' distance of 730m.
Punters should be aware that given how poorly the states manage data between themselves, it is highly likely the distance changes will not be reflected in the OzChase database, or at least not for some time.
GRV was quick to announce that the distance error was isolated to The Meadows only.
“Following the discovery, GRV had all tracks certified by a civil engineer according to GAR 43 with no further discrepancies found,” Greg Kerr, General Manager Racing and Racing Safety said.