Wednesday's NAP, Twelve Bars, won at Kempton on the all-weather in what the card described as "standard to slow" conditions. We've covered Kempton before, so this guide is about the surface itself and how to read it.
The track. Kempton's all-weather course is a floodlit Polytrack surface that opened in March 2006. It's a right-handed oval, and the circuit is either 8 or 10 furlongs depending on whether the inner or outer bend is used. Because it's floodlit and synthetic, racing can take place at all light levels and in all but the most severe weather.
What Polytrack is. Polytrack is a synthetic surface, and one of its main features is consistency. It drains within minutes and behaves much the same through the seasons, so it doesn't change with the rain in the way turf does. That makes times and form easier to compare from one meeting to the next.
What "standard" and "standard to slow" mean. Turf going runs through a scale from heavy to firm, but all-weather surfaces don't follow it. Polytrack going is almost always described as "standard." "Standard to slow" is used occasionally, typically when the surface has recently been rolled or watered, and it tells you the surface may be a touch more tiring than normal. Twelve Bars' race was watered, which fits that description.
How to read a Kempton all-weather card. Because the surface is so consistent, the usual factors carry more weight than going preferences: the horse's own form, any evidence it has run well on the all-weather, trainer and jockey form, and the price. We flagged on Twelve Bars' card that we couldn't tell if he'd raced on the all-weather before, which is a useful question to ask of any runner here, especially a young one with few runs. He made all the running and won by half a length, but a single front-running win isn't a pattern, and we'd be cautious about reading a track bias from one race.
Kempton's all-weather surface is predictable by design, which makes it a good place to practise reading a card without the going muddying the picture.
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