Flemington's Straight Six Has Puzzled

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6955, 8 July 1929, Page 4

Flemington's Straight Six Has Puzzled

INSIDE HORSES FAVOURED AN EVENING-UP PROCESS Has the problem of the straight six at Flemington been solved? The fact that all of the three races over this course on the programme of theV.R.C. Birthday meeting were won by horses on the Inside suggests that the conditions have at last been evened up. As all regular followers of racing know, horses drawn on the outside of the straight have appeared in the past to derive an advantage over those on the other side. The results pointed to it, at all events, for horses on the outer r or stand side kept on winning with monotonous regularity. The anomaly was so evident at the last autumn meeting (says a Melbourne writer), that Mr. A. V. Kewney, secretary of the V.R.C., determined to remove it if possible, and ever since he has been working on the question—not without some success, it would seem. Many Theories Although many theories have been advanced, one cause of the unevenness of conditions could be a greater growth of grass on the one side as compared with the other. After the last Newmarket one trainer suggested that perhaps the strip of turf on the inside of the straight received more water than that on the other. Certainly that part of it which is in use for other races would naturally receive greater attention, and thus might not be as firm and fast as that on the outside, where the heavy course traffic and the ambulance vans flattened the grass. The passage of the ambulance has been stopped, and the course rollers, and other implements now are taken over another track, so that the growth of grass on the outside is probably greater than before. Whatever haß happened, it would at all events seem as if the outside or fast side of the track is now a good deal slower than before. Won on Wrong Side Those who at the Birthday meeting expected to see horses drawn on the stand side of the straight leading the fields received a surprise. Greener, in the Royal Handicap on the first day, came up the insido rail well ahead of