FAIRYHOUSE manager Peter Roe has hailed the rollout of new race distance measuring technology at the track as “a great step forward”, with officials at Leopardstown also raising their game with a fresh approach to ensuring distances are correct.

Irish racing has been in the spotlight previously over concerns that not all races are being run over their advertised distances, with inaccuracies pointed out at major festival meetings and in blacktype company.

There was memorably a dispute over the 2021 Savills Chase at Tramore, won by Al Boum Photo, when the race was said to be run over further than intended, while it appeared as though all seven runners broke the track record in the Listed Her Majesty’s Plate at Down Royal in 2019 before it was confirmed that the race had been run over shorter than advertised.

The rollout of sectional timing technology in Ireland appears to have driven the move from some tracks to modernise their distance-measuring systems. It was initially promised that all tracks in Ireland would have sectional timing operational back in January 2017 but progress has been extremely slow and there have been errors in sectional data published for high profile meetings such as the Irish Derby and Irish Champions Weekend last year.

On Friday, sectional timings were available for Leopardstown’s Thursday evening meeting via the Racing TV website but Fairyhouse’s data for Friday is not expected to be published imminently as the track trials the Coursetrack tracking system further.

Roe told The Irish Field on Friday: “For some time we’ve been trialling the Trimble measuring device, which is operated by a company named KOREC based in Ireland, to find a solution for a GPS device that could accurately measure the distance of the track, as per how the rail is laid down on that particular day.

“It’s a GPS device and we literally walk around, one yard off the running rail, the day before racing and the GPS is monitored to a 1cm accuracy. MK Surveys [who have measured over 60 racecourses across Britain and Ireland] were here this week also to survey the track, and all Irish tracks will be surveyed.

Shorter measurements

“Friday’s card here is the first time where race starts will be measured as per the KOREC Trimble device. We’re dealing with an average of three to four metres less per furlong than would have been the case with the traditional measuring wheel. I think it’s a great step forward for all of us. A number of tracks have spoken to me about what we’re doing. We’re funding this work ourselves.”

Leopardstown will adopt a different system in their measuring revamp, according to the course’s racing operations manager Jane Hedley.

“Our track has been professionally surveyed by MK Surveys and we now have fixed GPS survey points on the ground on our innermost running line,” she explained.“Then we have a spreadsheet, which tells us how far we need to move the start from that fixed survey point - depending on how far we’ve moved the rail. It all means that Coursetrack is compatible with us, and we have sectional timing up and running here.”