Who has produced the fastest time in Ireland in recent years?
The answer is Dundalk 400 yard (366m) track record holder Brodys Magic with a 20.73 run equating to 39.49 mph.
Big thanks to former Stow racing manager Tony Smith for the attached table which shows up a whole range of interesting figures.
The fastest eight times were all staged between 302m-366m (330-400yds).
Which only goes to demonstrate the quality of the Pestana 550 Shelbrourne track record, which is acutally quicker (in mph) than Paradise Madison’s 525 yard equivalent.
When it comes to the stayers, there is just .04 mph difference between Prince Monalulu’s 670 yard clock at Dundalk and Redzer Ardfert’s 750 clock at Shelbourne Park.
We have some more time and venue studies coming up in the coming days, but in the meantime, some more thoughts from Tony.
“It must be appreciated of course that the Irish tracks measure their distances a foot from the inside fence, whereby, the English tracks are measured a metre out.
“When we went metric in the 70’s , we were reliably officially informed by Fred Underhill at the NGRC, that the difference between the measuring of the track from one foot out to one metre out would be just over 2 metres per semi-circular bend.
“I can’t remember exactly what it was, but, for example at Monmore our 525 yards would be 480 meres, but suddenly became 484 metres.
“A lot of the tracks were running with completely wrong distances to start with anyway, so there were huge variations when they we “re-measured”.
“So, when you see the comparisons of say the fastest English 480 at Sheffield, it must be remembered that the fastest comparison of the Irish 480 at Shelbourne, the Irish dogs are actually running 4 metres more.
