Trakus and Woodbine

[46zilzal]

Just received a note from the Equibase chartman at Woodbine, P.T.

quote: "Just wanted to let you know that Trakus has apparently removed their equipment from WO. "

[PhantomOnTour]

Well, it’s a start

[cj]

Woodbine used GMAX last year (and the year before if I'm not mistaken) as the official timer and provided charts just like Trakus did. Trakus equipment was in place and Trakus charts available, but they've been pretty much out for a while now.

[JustRalph]

Damn shame. I had high hopes for Trakus 10 yrs back

[cj]

Originally Posted by JustRalph

Damn shame. I had high hopes for Trakus 10 yrs back

Still around at a few tracks, but only the timer for a couple officially, probably going the way of the saber-tooth tiger.

[classhandicapper]

Despite the occasional errors, Trakus makes my job WAY easier. When I watch replays at a Trakus track, I always have the ground loss data available.

Sometimes it's difficult to get reasonably accurate ground loss from the replay because of the angle available, no head on available, or horses being off the screen. With Trakus, I have a much easier time finding the horses and estimating their path at various stages on each turn.

I wish the resources were available to improve and expand on it.

There may be a few figure makers that do all that work manually and then sell their figures at a premium that are happy that never happened, but it's hard to imagine it's 2021, ground is not in the PPs, and I watch hours of replays every week to get information like that. It's not subjective.

[46zilzal]

Originally Posted by cj

Woodbine used GMAX last year (and the year before if I'm not mistaken) as the official timer and provided charts just like Trakus did. Trakus equipment was in place and Trakus charts available, but they've been pretty much out for a while now.

Trakus TRIED to promote itself as a timing system: NEVER worked adequately as their techs were around almost daily in the early days of that attempt.

I was not to be.

Clockers (back ups) routinely complained that it was off particularly in the early fractions,and particularly on the grass

[cj]

Originally Posted by 46zilzal

Trakus TRIED to promote itself as a timing system: NEVER worked adequately as their techs were around almost daily in the early days of that attempt.

I was not to be.

Clockers (back ups) routinely complained that it was off particularly in the early fractions,and particularly on the grass

Anybody that has read my posts here knows I've long said Trakus should have never been used for timing. Even today after more than a decade, there are still far too many egregious errors. Some tracks jumped in blindly without doing their due diligence, others used it for what it is good at (ground loss) but kept the timing part already in place. All blame doesn't go on Trakus.

[Tom]

So I have an idea for a brand new track.
We built it with a synthetic track, install Trakus, and ban whips.
Oh, and race two days a week with a 5 stall gate.


Should be a money pot!