Looking Ahead: The BAGS/SIS Intertrack 2012 - Overview of the Tracks.

 What is the Inter-track?

Here's the first of a series of blogs, where I will be looking at particular contenders for the BAGS/SIS Inter-track competition that's scheduled to take place near the end of the year.

For those that don't know, the Inter-track competition is a 6 group, 3 team contest between the BAGS tracks in the U.K. In this year's competition, we are grouped with Poole and Oxford. The winners of each of the groups will then head to Perry Barr for the grand final on Sunday 23rd December 2012. The total prize pot is pretty significant, adding a few £1000 to the prize funds in January, as well as other winners prizes.

In each leg of the competition, there are 6 races, with each track fielding two runners. The distances are:

> Standard Dogs
> Standard Bitches
> Standard Puppy
> Standard Mixed
> Sprint
> Stayers

Each race has a pretty good winners prize fund, with £200 to the winner, £100 second and £75 others for the races. There is also a traveling allowance allocated for the event.

Greyhounds running in the event must be OR maiden's before the start, and have 5 graded races on their card at their particular track. Alas, at this time of year, I think it's unrealistic to look at dogs just trialling on, as the time frame to get runs in isn't sufficient.

The Opponents

So, on our travels we will be venturing up the A420 to Oxford, and down that bloomin' awful Salisbury route to Poole. Two tracks that are really very similar. Both are near enough the exact opposite of Swindon!

Oxford

I've been Oxford to watch open races quite a lot. I find the track not quite as tight as Poole, however it certainly takes a trial to see the track and the first bend in particular. The traps are flat fronted and work on hydraulics. There's a pretty long run up to the first bend, however once at the bend, its a sharp turn into the second, and you find a lot of dogs who haven't had a look move off either at the first, or cut right in around the first and move off at the second. Heading into the third bend, the thing that differs from some tracks that I've visited, is that there seems to be alot of room to make a move either through the middle or on the rails. Certain tracks, like Nottingham, seem to funnel towards the rail, which makes passing on the bend very difficult.

The standard trip at Oxford is run over 450m, the stayers over 595m and the sprint over 250m.

Early pace seems to be the key for Oxford, however you do see a fair share of dogs coming off the back. I think, ideally, a middle runner with good early would be ideal over the standard distance here, as the railers without a look can tend to move off and cause some bother. Some early pace through the middle means that the greyhound could carry the bend.

For the 595m trip, a QAw railer is a must in my opinion. It's a really short run into the first bend, and more often that not, whatever leads round this bend tends to do best. Obviously, you do need to last home, as the run in can catch some out. 

Poole

Similar to Oxford in many ways, however I feel a slightly different approach would be needed. Again, I've been to Poole plenty of times. It's a cracking little track, with a superbly prepared surface. I think that the bends are alot tighter than Oxfords, and the straights are a touch shorter aswell. Poole is most definitely a track where you need early pace to get round the bend in a decent pitch. 

My most recent experience of Poole was the opening round of the Golden Crest. As with Oxford, what you found with some of the greyhounds who didn't have a look around was that they were moving off quite badly on the first bend. There isn't a massive amount of camber (angle of the bend) to keep the greyhounds in either. Again, unlike Oxford, I've found that the 3rd bend seems to cause a lot of traffic problems. Poole is generally alot narrower than Oxford in any case, meaning that passing room is at a premium.

One particular positive about the track, in relation to our greyhound's performance there, is that they use the roll-on curve front traps like we do at Swindon. People underestimate how the traps can affect a dog. Hydraulics and roll-ons work in completely different ways, and can throw some dogs. The difference between flat front and curve front also can cause problems.

The standard trip at Poole is run over 450m, and the best policy here is a QAw railer. If you can get round that first bend in a pitch, then you should have a great chance. I'd sooner a railer than a wide runner round there any day.

The stayers trip is over 640m, and is a good run for stayers. Local greyhound Wise Totty has a pretty good track record round there. You need to show a kick of early, but you also need to stay on, as it seems to catch alot of dogs out. 

The sprint trip is run over 250m.

There's my thoughts about the tracks we'll be visiting over the course of the competition. One thing I do think we must do as a team this time is make use of the travelling allowance to trial on at the tracks. We had an awful lot of dogs run blind last year, and to me that cost us alot of valuable points. With there not being alot of distance involved this time around, it'd be worth putting some future planning in and getting some trials into our hopefuls.

I'll be starting with the Stayer's division first and foremost, having a look at some of our potential contenders.I'm hoping to have this blog, and the corresponding blogs a couple of days after one another. 

I'm really interested to hear your opinions about the subject aswell, including if I miss anyone out, or if you have a feeling about anything to do with the Intertrack. We're in it as a team, and we should be open to discuss it as such! If you wish to pass comments or opinions on, feel free to comment on the bottom of this blog post.

Just a heads up about the future blogs and this one, these are only my opinions, and don't necessarily have any bearing on the team picks etc.

Happy Punting!

Chris Watts