DERBY TRAPS SPLIT OPINION

“If you really want to look at bias, study the sectional times. I would be surprised if you would find one”

The new starting traps for the 2020 Star Sports/ARC/LPS Greyhound Derby are ready for delivery to Nottingham though the man who designed and built them remains unconvinced that there is anything wrong with the current Nottingham boxes – writes Floyd Amphlett.

Until Nottingham’s first English Derby last year, the subject of a trap bias in favour of the middle boxes – particularly at the expense of traps one and six – wasn’t even ‘a thing’. By the end of the event, it was widely acknowledged that traps three and four in particular were ‘ping boxes’.

Faced with a widely held perception that had the potential to damage credibility of the 2020 Derby, Nottingham commission new starting traps from Tom and Gavin Smith (G&T Hare Systems), the country’s single biggest supplier of new traps and other racing hardware, including the equipment at all the bookmaker owned tracks.

The ‘word’ from trainers was that because the current traps used a single ram (the device use to secure the close traps and then push up the fronts as they opened), which is situated between traps three and four, it was giving the middle runners an advantage.

The suggestion was that either the sound of the solenoid triggering the opening, or the slight bowing of the boxes from the middle, put traps one and six at a disadvantage.

That view was challenged by the Nottingham management who produced statistics to back up their statements. To quote just one, ‘6.6% of wide seeds reached the semi finals, compared to 6.5% of railers’. Figure compiled by Mark Pierrepont last year suggest that the ‘1-5-6’ bias at Shelbourne Park is significantly greater than the ‘2-3-4’ bias at Nottingham.

(Of the original 192 acceptors in the 2019 English Derby, 116 were railers, and only 23 were wide seeds)

So how does Gavin Smith see the issue?

He said: “Tracks vary everywhere. There is one track in particular in Ireland where there is a huge percentage of winners from trap six. I don’t think it is a trap issue. It is how the track runs and some tracks suit some running styles more than others.

“The key would be to compare the sectionals because they take bends out of the equation and just concentrate on the traps.”

So the ‘bowing’ of the traps is a myth?

Gavin said: “I can’t say that. I looked at a lot of traps opening in videos for the Irish Greyhound Board and it wasn’t obvious, though I do think it might have happened at certain tracks and was caused by dogs pushing against them. I have never seen it in England”

So will the new Nottingham traps operate identically to the old ones?

Gavin said: “I think they may open a fraction quicker than the old ones. They did when we tested them in the workshop, we will see what happens when they are fitted.”

The plan is for the new boxes to be fitted the week after next and be in situ for the first meeting a fortnight from today.