Trotwest, Thursday, February 8, 1990 - Page 5

New sulky has speed advantage

Statistics taken from the recent 10-race test series of the Walsh & Ireland sulky at Gloucester Park bears testimony to the maker’s claim that the new cart is faster, and safer than existing models.

THE Gloucester Park test series of the revolutionary Regal Ireland Special (Regal I.S.) racing sulky has demonstrated the accuracy of the views of many of Australia’s most successful drivers, that it is an outstanding advance in sulky technology, setting new standards in speed and “road-holding”

The race statistics show that, in a sprint race, the driver of the Regal I.S. could expect to be gaining nearly a foot a second on his traditionally-equipped rivals for the duration of the race.

Over the duration of the test series (18/11/89 to 12/1/90) the fastest mile rate achieved to a traditional sulky was - not surprisingly - Westburn Grant’s 1:57.9, set in the first prelude of the Benson & Hedges Cup.

The potency of the new sulkies may be gauged by Armbro Vance’s feat of achieving the same time over the same distance on the same track.

This represented a reduction of 1.7 seconds on the best mile rate Armbro Vance had achieved in his usual Regal TP601 sulky.

Since the average such improvement achieved by all placegetters in the Walsh & Ireland Stakes (in which all starters used the new technology sulkies) was 1.6 seconds. Armbro Vance’s feat was fairly typical of the expected result.

The greater speeds that the Regal I.S. enables horses to readily achieve does not come at the price of greater risk.

At no stage during the running of the Gloucester Park tests, or at any time during its mixed-type racing history on the east coast, has there been a fall or driver unseated in a Regal I.S. sulky.

Instead, drivers report greatly improved track-holding (especially on wet and muddy tracks.)

These results are all the more remarkable when the great majority of drivers at Gloucester Park had absolutely minimal prior experience with the new sulkies.

Many did not use them until the actual race night.

As a result, there were a number of problems with harnessing up the sulky to best effect.

This was not unexpected, since no other track on earth has staged even a single race to an entire field of asymmetric sulkies; and Gloucester Park has had the first 10 such races in the history of harness racing!

Not only has the WATA achieved that milestone, but no other sulky this century has had such a thorough and extensive test programme on its introduction and no other sulky (including the US “modified” sulky) has demonstrated better than a one second advantage over the previous types.

The Regal I.S. has demonstrated a 1.6 second average improvement in 2100 metre races, and a 2.7 second average mile rate improvement in 1700 metre sprints.

In other words, the greater the speed required, the greater is the advantage offered by the Regal I.S.

What could be achieved by drivers after they had time to become thoroughly familiar with the new sulky, makes interesting speculation.

Certainly those owners who had the opportunity to use the Regal I.S. in mixed fields were highly impressed.

The emphasis placed on the new sulky’s handling by drivers familiar with the type shows that it has achieved one of the chief aims of its designer.

Over the last 10 years in particular, improved breeding and improved tracks have led to faster racing.

When horses travel faster they increase their stride length, and start to kick a traditional sulky where the same horse would have no problem at lower speeds.

The most common method of solving this problem has been to further lengthen what is already the longest racing sulky in the world.

Many drivers, however, have realised that this not only makes the sulky heavier and less efficient, but slows the horse down.

A better solution is to widen the sulky; giving more lateral clearance between the rear hooves and the sulky wheels, stirrups etc. This is the solution adopted by the rest of the world.

However, we are restricted by our many narrow tracks and our racing rules to a maximum width of 1.3 metres. This is not sufficient, at the higher speeds now attainable, to prevent hoof strikes.

The solution attained by the Regal I.S. is to offset the horse and driver 2.6”” (6.5 cm) to the nearside of the sulky, and thus increase the critical clearance between the off-rear hoof and the sulky wheel etc.

This enables us to shorten up the sulky by 11” (28 cm), dramatically improving speed and road-holding in the process, as the Perth tests have demonstrated to devastating effect.

Another significant safety advantage flowing from this design, is that the horse’s off-hooves extend significantly less distance beyond the off-side lateral limits of the sulky frame. This makes it much easier for an overtaking driver to gauge his clearance to avoid his nearside wheel contacting an off-rear hoof of the horse being overtaken, since it is a lot easier to see the sulky undercart and frame than an intermittently-appearing hoof that may be obscured by dust etc.

I suspect that this is one of the main reasons for the outstanding safety record demonstrated by the Regal I.S. in all types of racing over the last year.

Good as they undoubtedly are, the new sulkies are not perfect, but they do offer the most cost-effective route to upgrading our sulkies to match the capabilities of our horses.

We cannot use the necessarily-wider US and European symmetrical types, because our tracks will not allow them.

We cannot make our present 1.17 metre-wide sulkies longer, because they will be slower than our already too slow types, and needlessly dangerous.

Unless we are willing to spend many millions of dollars to replicate US and European tracks and sulkies, we should develop the offset principle as being the cheapest and best solution to our own particular circumstances.

The $64 question is: what happens now?”