Ryan,

I think we understand your long held objections to wide lures but it is probably a different subject and is unproven anyway.

However, there has been a mountain of study of stresses and strains related to going round a turn (mostly ex USA). From that emerges the theme that the higher the camber the less a dog's leg(s) is stressed. This is basic engineering - as evidenced by the camber on highways, where it is easier to steer around a cambered turn than on a flat road.

Overlapping that are two factors - the depth or softness of the surface and the makeup or characteristics of individual dogs. Each dog will have a dominant or stronger side (as do humans), meaning it is harder or easier to stick to the rail. Lefties - or wide runners tend to lose ground on the turns because their driving leg is pushing them off the track. Some 80% (dogs or humans) are right handed/legged and therefore tend to rail. Left-dominant dogs want to move off the track and run wide.

It's not a fixed law as there are variations just as some batsmen bat right but use the left hand for throwing or bowling (Michael Clarke). Others are the reverse (Mark Taylor). Similarly, with experience, some wide runners learn to rail on the turns while still running wide in the straights (both Assassins).

As for injury stats - they are available within studies done on behalf of GRV by Linda Beer but apart from a talk to a vet's convention (see also the McHugh evidence) none of this has been made available to the public. That particular work originated in surveys initiated by WA and SA on broken hocks but were later taken over by GRV.

A related issue is that other studies have directed attention to early education and the probability that young bones are over-stressed by being asked to always make left turns. Resultant cracks can therefore lead to breaks under high pressure on the racetrack.

It's a complex issue but one which should be much better publicised.

Either way, tracks with higher turn cambers produce better and fairer racing. Where you see too much "running off" it is due to a flat surface (eg Bulli, Richmond, Ipswich).

Finally, Ryan, can I suggest that the vast majority of Australian track were never "designed". They were put together when a few blokes sat around a committee table and said "Let's build a track". Working bees followed.

Serious questions Bruce , although you still havent answer my previous ones ??

Let me see if Ive got this right

So there is left legged dogs and right legged dogs
Due to this one of these sided dogs isnt suited to a left hand turn as good as the other

Can you provide the tests or studies that pin pointed these wide left or right legged dogs that were then sent around the other way that then clearly showed them then becoming true railers ?

Id like to see this result ! If you can ? Coz the prognosis and the test seem extremely easy to find out if this is correct

Second question

You keep comparing man made mechanisms eg bicycles and cars that rely or work on zero give to work eg

Bikes around velodromes that rely on 2 forces against each other to glide across a zero forgiving surface
Or cars on roads or even better how about the same version of your example with bikes , lets use stock cars around Daytona !
Which are purpose built or modified differently from one side of the car to the other due to the excessive camber so the car can endure the wear and tare

Do you really believe that the smartest and most suitable comparison to an animal
Is bikes and cars ?

Who knew , this whole time the speed wild animals of Africa should have been catching their prey on slopes or bike burns instead of an open flat plain .
Lucky their prey only run in a straight line I guess

Sorry for the silly comparison in using animals against animals ,how stupid of me

Bruce you state again and again where too much run off occurs its purely from not enough camber Bulli Richmond and Ipswich

Untrue , there are factors like being hit , too many runners and inexperienced runners !

A lot of these factors can be erased purely by having 6 dog fields for maidens or even 0-4 winners races
Confidence can also play a massive role in the mentality of a Dogs commitment all round , let alone taking a run through a gap up the rail ! Often taking an easy way out which is where there is ROOM
This is out wide
Nothing to do with camber or left footed .... lol sorry I just cant keep a straight face when I use this terminology

Ps I cant wait for my next litter to be bred so I can advertise these pups are all right handed and will rail !
And if you ask me howd I know its coz every time I put a pen in their left paw none of the silly shyts can write their own name properly
If I laugh its not you or the pup , Im just a happy bloke

Ryan the only way to fully cover and record all injuries isnt by just a visit to any given vet but for all vets to have a site or login system where all injuries are recorded under each greyhounds name and track last run

Log books

Which vet ( coz it would have to be official or done by a recognised persons ) who works under the cash system and has 20 dogs lined up at anytime will stop and login and fill out injury reports ?

None

It will never happen which concludes a consult with track users is by far more appropriate and closer to being correct then any injury report research done over 12 mths which doesnt even contain 75 % or more injuries over this time

Thats how much its not even a laughing matter and why Ill never listen ,agree or congratulate the current system or its researches

Just like doctors in hospitals more times then not they are along for ride in the area of unknown in terms of results despite their well earnt title or name

I have to go now and check my dog he is limping on his right back leg it could be a puncher ?.

I was answering Ryan's queries but feel free to horn in.

I will not bother answering all your questions because you are clearly not interested in considering any other view than your own.

However, the handedness which you rubbish is of interest to quite a few vet types at unis, including the lead Professor at Macquarie and to a post graduate student at Syd Uni who I assisted when he was doing a final paper on it (he reported to McGreevy of WDA fame). He used SA greyhounds for his experiments. There would be others if you can be keen enough to search them out.

The same applies to designing and handling turns - look them up and learn (Gillette and others).

Horses, too, like the Melbourne runner who won the Epsom even though it crabbed all the way down the home straight, finishing next to the outside fence. Moreira could also tell you about his skills in encouraging a horse to change its leading foot as it approached a turn.

Handedness is everywhere. It's the animal kingdom, of which we are a part. It also show up routinely in ARL where these days centres have a strong natural preference for locating on one side or the other. Terry Hill is a also dog man so go and ask him why he always insisted an playing on the right side. (If you don't understand ARL then skip this suggestion).

and that there says it all.........I feel for the people who've put in so much money, time and effort to get these dogs to the track and have these things happen..........it's clear the actual racing experience from the animals perspective needs to be re-evaluated in regard to the drastic changes to racing that were made........at the end of the day who is actually happy with the product ? just common sense isn't it ?

Bruce

It is a forum , anyone can join in at anytime ,just reminding you

Ryan and I were talking about cambers and possible different degrees of stress applied on different parts of a corner due to a new lure being applied to an old track

You then horned in and proceeded to inform us ,sorry Ryan only , the great mystery of why and how some Dogs might not rail as good as others !
Which technically was of any or great importance ,it would actually work against your stats or previous theory on having greater cambers would it not ?

Its just that it is a left footed dog ! Nothing to do with camber angle variance

My point about having a laugh about this theory is ,apart from having nothing to do with flat or steep cambers and its pending results inflicted on a greyhound in which we were referring too

IMOP the outcome of this test concludes what ????? That a tiny percentage cant use a left lead leg
You use horses as another example .....yet again managed by man or woman
This again only further consolidates how small a percentage this all contributes to nothing towards setting up a tracks corners to its upmost safest design

A horse can run in nsw for years on its right lead leg , in a matter of weeks it can suddenly adapt and run the complete opposite lead leg in Melbourne

Not bad for a left hoofed horse

My point is how something your mentioning can be so easily reversed and become a topic that need only be researched with a magnifying glass

If youd like to ask Terry hill about the side he chose to play football on its probably coz he was a spastic at passing the ball to his left
It has nothing to do with power output in footballers legs that determines which side they play on Bruce ,sorry I actually played the game

Again Bruce I think there is more immediate events or occurrences that have a greater impact on why Dogs are getting injured ( cambers /surface density) or why they are running off the track ( inexperience , too many numbers at this early age , hits and box layout ) to name just a few ......

As compared to who is left pawed or right
But great info and keep up the top work professor and co.

Ps Ryan you are right it is common sense and it takes everyone from all corners to work together , not just the apparent researchers
Ive been accused of only listening to my own opinion , at present it would be
Researchers 99% trainers /breeders /owners 1% involvement and look where we are

Bit hard to listen anymore , you get what your given
Until the researchers and professors and co realise the guys putting food in bowls or leads on collars have just as much value in any potential advancements towards this sport

I will continue to rebut all your flash ideas /theorys Bruce and those alike you

And this is all I stated many posts ago bob
The effort put into a velodrome style track at wenty needs to be also applied to track materials to give or add dampening to a greyhounds compression through its foot and gave what I thought was logical or common sense reasons why along the way

Im not saying have grass everywhere but hey you could be right
See Bruce I do listen or at least acknowledge others

But bob at the end of the day there a others in the world that dont have our problems and arent run on grass

Im hearing you but ...... over and out
Ill wait for a consult with a band of highly performed and competent trainers in hand
Pigs might fly

Good luck all , gotta go prep a beauty and who knows maybe pull the deciding track we go to out of a hat ???

More puzzling is that both tracks have previously undergone rebuilding costing hundreds of thousands of dollars (mostly for flood reasons), yet all they did was to put back what was there before ie the same old bend starts. Hello!

Casino was forced to go loam not for flood reasons. Ive been told that when it was grass they had big turnovers per meeting n crowd attendances. Maybe it was the sign of the times, but the grass track survived 52 races per year n trialling as well, for many years. Casino has only been loam for a few years.

Bob,

I think I have previously agreed with the early part of your comments - ie that a wide runner will learn as it goes along that getting close to the lure is easier if it sticks a bit closer to the fence. Then I offered the example of Whisky/Awesome Assassin which ran records by railing on the turn (more or less) but still running wide in the straights. Queenslander Questions as well.

Overlaying that is the matter of what eye angle to the lure a dog prefers - not sure about that, but it bears thought (ie does it influence the odd dog that crashes to the rail, or the one that refuses to pass the leader on the outside).

Horses v dogs - the convention seems too be that the horse decides which FRONT leg to put first but can be convinced otherwise with the right jockey. I have never seen evidence or even theory of a dog doing likewise but I suppose it is possible. However, that does not get away from the well demonstrated fact that a dog drives with the rear leg (one more dominant than the other) and, in turn, that governs the way it gets around a corner. Hence, for example, a dog either railing or spearing off on the turn, which happens every day.

In many cases, a dog is so adept at railing that it can overcome a track camber problem and go around on the paint. A couple of Eggs have been won that way. I also recall Mystery Idle winning multiple Bulli races while the opposition wandered off the (flat) track. etc etc.

America - never been able to locate decent engineering data on their tracks and observations alone can be misleading. However, softer track surfaces are a factor. Otherwise, American studies reflect similar desirable cambers to those now being encouraged by UTS. Also, an American did advise GRSA when it was making changes to Angle Park.

The basic position is still that a majority of dogs rail and a minority don't - with a small group in between. Just like people. Dave Warner could hit sixes batting right or left handed.

Do you note that both Rafael Nadal and Angelique Kerber are born lefties but both write with their right hand? Rafa even throws towels to the crowd with his right hand.

Otherwise, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

To sum up, as much as I can learn is that there is a core probability that up to 85% of dogs, more or less, have some tendency to run near or close to the rail. That is also based on observation and classification of dogs over many years. However, some "experts" would maintain that the division of handedness is more like 50/50 and is a bit different for males compared with females. Still, these are pretty rough guesses and are based on feeding and other habits and on other dog breeds. One of those involves a claim that lefty dogs are more aggressive than righties - also not quite proven.

Either way, genetics is the dominant factor - if you take a consensus. Education or training does not seem to make a huge difference, but more experience does.

One interesting point is that trainee guide dogs are washed out early in the process if they can't comfortably walk to the left of the subject (for safety reasons) because of right side of brain dominance - ie genetics.

So it is a bit of a chicken and egg question. The prospect of training dogs differently (to avoid running wide) seems remote. Therefore improved running is possible only if tracks are more sympathetically designed and maintained. Meantime, that does not prevent a trainer selecting track A over track B because it better suits his dog - that makes good sense. It has always been so.

The extreme is that if you force a dog to race on a poorly designed track you must expect a greater chance of injury - eg when starting on a bend. See Lismore Casino and all the others mentioned.

My observation (aside from good and bad box draws) is that there is only one TAB trip in NSW which offers a reasonably fair chance to all runners - Grafton 407m. All the rest have man made obstacles.

PS Casino is said to be "popular" but it has a licensed club as part of the complex, which means comparing apples with oranges. On the other hand, the flood-prone Lismore is handy to town, university and a much bigger population.

The left and right handedness stuff is not my theory - it's the finding of dozens and dozens of professionals around the world. The only query would be what the proportions are.

But I have extended it a bit by suggesting that a dominant left or right driving leg - ie the rear one - is what governs a dog's habit of railing or running wide. But what other conclusion could you draw?

My Grafton point was that it is virtually the only trip in NSW where the boxes are located widely and you have a decent straightway run to the turn. I agree that the turn may be questionable as to camber but mostly it seems to work.

The former Border Park was another good example (420m only).

Maitland will have its supporters but I can't rate it since they fooled around with the early part of the turn, plus too many dogs run wide on the turn into the straight.

Yes, the absence of a straight track for real racing is a disgrace.

I am not expert on turning over surfaces but I assume it is necessary to (a) avoid potholes and (b) retain the correct camber.