Southwell

The All Weather track at Southwell is a flat left handed oval of a mile-and-a-quarter for the “round” course, the bends have a slight camber built into them. The three furlong spur is one of two All Weather straight 5f course in the country the other being Newcastle.

The Southwell track was resurfaced with Fibresand in 1989 which has a very different riding characteristic to the Polytrack or Tapeta that is found at the other 5 UK All Weather tracks of Wolverhampton, Newcastle,Chelmsford, Lingfield and Kempton.

The Fibresand rides deeper and slower than the other All Weather track surfaces.  However, the more moisture in the sand, the more it tends to compact which can result the surface riding faster than normal. The course is watered on dry sunny days to keep the moisture in it, but as it is harrowed and rolled after each race, it can dry out quickly and becomes deeper and slower. Conversely on a damp rainy day the surface compacts a lot quicker and can become noticeably faster.

Good Early Speed and a strong Galloper

The other major difference of the fibresand compared to the other All Weather surfaces is the “kickback” created by the horses. The sand is literally kicked up from the horses in front into the faces of the horses and jockeys behind. This can affect the performance of the horses and jockeys who are held up at the rear of the field. The track certainly favours horses who are quick from the gate and can get into a positive position, therefore it's beneficial to look for a horse that shows good early speed and is a strong galloper.

Draw Bias
The Southwell Course is a fair course, with little draw bias at the majority of the distances. However, the 5f sprint course statistics show that there is a strong bias . It appears that the centre of the track is the fastest. I have heard the theory that this is because the rollers used are 2/3rd the width of the track, therefore the middle of the track actually gets rolled twice. Quite often this is visible as the middle of the track looks darker. High number are next to the stands rail and are therefore running on the slower part of the track. This therefore presents an advantage to those drawn low or in the middle.  The majority of 5F races are won by horses coming down the middle of teh track.

 Course & Distance Form is Key
Southwell is definitely a “horses for courses” type track on the All Weather. The sand is a specialist surface which suits a certain type of horse. You can see from Sire Stats that breeding is important to the performance of horses on the sand but I always look for proven course and distance form which is a major positive in my book.  You tend to find some horses are real course specialist.