Track walked at 12pm Thursday.
Winning Post-1500m:
Very little to report in this section. I expect it to race evenly. The coverage is fair, there's give in the ground and I can't see anything out of the ordinary happening here. Walked a '5.5' but there's been additional rain since I walked it.
1500-800m (back straight):
I felt hard up on the fence was slightly softer that the other lanes, mostly due to a thicker coverage of grass hard up on the fence. The surface is pretty even and as clean as anywhere on the track. It should race well here but felt closer to a '6'.
1400m-800m (chute):
The coverage here is probably better than any other section of the track. The track isn't as scarred and as a result was holding more moisture than other sections. I can't see see them running slick times through this section and upon exiting the chute there was a touch more marking close to the fence in lane 1.
800m-400m:
With the rail having moved out an additional 3m from the last meeting, you can see the presence of sandfill in lane 1. Outside of the inner lane the fill disappears until you get right out wide into lanes where I doubt they'll race. Even though the inside lane has noticeable fill I didn't think it would make a huge difference to the pattern. They might drift just off the fence here but I doubt there will be a need to come any wider. It walked a '5.5' but with the additional rain on Thursday night I would imagine it would be in the '6' range by now.
400m-Winning Post:
The outer half of the track has more growth and may stick together better than the inside half but I didn't feel there was a huge amount of difference. You'll notice the greener colour of the outer lanes on the television screen but the outer lanes has more sandfill than the crest of the track. The inside six lanes has scattered sandfill and there's significant scarring across most of that section. I'm still not convinced that any of the lanes will race much quicker but it won't surprise me to see them use plenty of the track once again on Saturday. I'm expecting the rating to be in the '6' range.
Verdict:
Anytime the rail is in the 6m position on the Parks track you have to be mindful that it might be difficult to peel out wide and loop the field from the back. That said, I'm confident it's not a case of a fence-bias so you might find the pattern slightly favours horses that are able to corner close to the rail but it won't surprise me to see them winning right across the track in the straight. It's always hard to predict the rating when there's been rain post the walking but I felt the track was in the '5' to '5.5' range at the time. There's been an additional 5mls since so I'd be very confident it would now be in the '6' range and might be there for raceday.
