New tool to help assess track conditions

A tool to help assess track conditions is being extended to all four Melbourne metropolitan racetracks.

The GoingStick has been in use at Flemington where they have captured three years of data and it will be rolled out to Caulfield, Moonee Valley and Sandown for the spring carnival.

Flemington will produce a GoingStick report on Saturday instead of the traditional penetrometer, which will complement the current track rating system of fast, good, soft and heavy.

Racing Victoria hopes to have the GoingStick replace the penetrometer at metropolitan meetings by late 2016 and plans to implement it in early 2017 at Ballarat, Bendigo, Cranbourne, Mornington and Pakenham.

The GoingStick, which is used widely in Britain, measures a track's penetration, being the amount of force required to push the tip of the Goingstick into the surface, and the shear, which is the energy required to pull back to a 45 degree angle from the ground.

When combined, the two measures represent the firmness of the ground and the level of traction experienced by a horse during a race.