42 year old world record for 1000 meters nearly falls at Scottsville.

French mare  Habibti  set a Group 1 record in the Prix de l'Abbaye at 54.30 seconds in 1983

Master Magician ran 54.39 yesterday at Scottsville.

2 and a half seconds faster than Averni Princess in the last

This can't be correct ? 

We were also asking if correct and apparently it was checked and verified. 

If anyone believes the times from yesterday then you believe that Unicorns exist.

No tail wind, not the middle of winter... just where the technical side of racing has fell to.

Half of the sectional timing does not exist on Gallop. The sectional times on Gallop, Winning Form and the ComputaForm vary. So i wouldn't be placing a single gram of confidence in whoever was doing the verification yesterday.

The pen reading for yesterday was definitely off. Normally the going is best down the inside yet the only kickback and trail of cut up ground was on the inside. Go and watch the first few races. If you believe that inside was good and not soft then something is wrong. Yet the reading was the same across the track???

Did the Stipes walk the track before the meeting yesterday?

Sectional timing and the pen readings are suspect at best and not accurate or trustworthy. KZN also has the worst starting gates record in South Africa and yet we all glance over it and accept the tripe offered in feedback.

Where is the NHRA report from when the lights went off completely at Greyville in the last 150m of the race??? Should the result have stood? What about the danger to horse and rider? Racing being halted for 1.5 hours during a meeting for a light show, staff Christmas function and announcement that the prize money for the July is ridiculous. 

While I was happy that Hollywood financially rescued KZN racing from a dysfunctional Gold Circle, I am not happy to turn a blind eye when racing is run like a second hand car lot.

Craig, do you not work for the Miller stable?

So you are agreeing that the time was real because someone verified it?

Because the horse is in your stable? so this horse should be worth at least R15m after yesterday.... lets see what the offers are.

Princess of Gaul won her maiden by 9.5L at Scottsville in a time similar to the Strelitzia and still this was not the class or course record. 

Any racing person knows that in order to even pretend that was a course record, the winner should have won by 15 lengths or that whole 2yr old field is better that all the sprinters in South Africa.

The time of the second race winner would have beat the Gold Medallion winner Good For You by 4 lengths.... In a pigs eye

 

FYI sectionals posted. Looks like they ran 930 meters instead of 1000 meters. would not have changed the result. But dissapointing from the operators.

That's my point Sylvester, who knows what the hell is going on from a technical perspective?

who are the people responsible for the various jobs and who is doing the measurement or checks that it is correct?

Pen readings, who? How is it varified?
Sectional timing, who? How is it varified?
Track maintenance, who? Greyville? Greyville Poly? Scottsville? Sumerveldt?
Lights at Greyville, who? Why did they go off during a race?

.....not the 1st time this has happened in this burg.....ooopps

Tigershark, we were surprised when we were told about the time and were later told that it had been checked and verified.  There is no doubt that he is very very good. Time will tell how good. 

There is no way that time is correct, if that is so even the second horse broke the previous course record. If the time is correct, they never ran 1000m?? Anybody checked more closely via the replay - even hand-timed?

Hawk I have just been reading an article on Sporting Post about this ( sorry not sure how to cut and paste it on to here ) and their sectional timing expert hand-timed it at 56.44 secs. 

How can there be such a huge discrepancy? Whilst I have no doubt that the winner is a decent horse there is no ways he ran 5 furlongs in 54.39 secs. 

 

Craig, you guys definitely have a good horse on your hands, well done and I am happy for you guys.

But there is no way the times were right yesterday and you guys cannot be happy??? 

My questions remain, did the Stipes walk the course or witness the penetrometer reading being taken? Who measures the official distances pre-racemeeting? What other measurements are taken of the track?

The problem here rests directly with Operator, Hollywood and the NHRA, but once again, silence.

If the race was run over less than 1000m then what? Under the rug or deal with it?