Key Characteristics
Wolverhampton Racecourse is a strange place being situated in the middle of a housing estate. It has a hotel on site but overall is a pretty heartless place to visit in person. Even the parade ring is all weather. The course has floodlights and regularly host Saturday night fixtures.
Wolverhampton racecourse is a left handed all-weather course. They have now become the first UK racecourse to use a Tapeta racing surface, with the first meeting on Tapeta being held on the 11th August 2014. The course is only a mile all the way round and its oval shape means that it is very similar in configuration to most US racetracks. Wolverhampton is tight circular track with a relatively short 2 furlong straight.
Draw Bias and Pace Analysis
Over 5 furlongs it is more important to get out in front and either be leading or very handy coming off the final bend. The draw only comes into effect in larger fields where it then pays to be draw low so that you can get to the front and not have to race wide round the bend.
Over 6 furlongs it pays to be handy. Again don’t get pushed wide. Often over 6 furlongs someone gets first run and looks as though it’s going to win only to be swallowed up in the last 50 yards. It makes for exciting viewing. Over 7 furlongs the start is off a shute and they go quickly into a left hand turn which means you need to get out quite quickly to get a position prominent and on the rails. It’s very easy in big fields to get pushed wide or squeezed out or blocked. Generally it is quite difficult to front run over the 7 furlong trip.
The extended 1 mile is particularly interesting as the stats tell us it is almost impossible to make all. It is ranked 35/39 UK courses for the number of 1.01 losers.
Although slightly more likely trips further than a mile are also statistically against front runners.
