Racetracks should start measuring wind direction

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by Travis Stone

Does anyone have an idea of the equipment necessary to measure wind/velocity? No sarcasm, legitimately asking...

I'm not sure. Maybe find out who the sheets companies use to do it at LAD and ask them.

Here's Ragozin's takes on wind direction:

The effect of wind on running time was something I noticed almost from the first day I started working seriously on figures. Frankly, it was hard to miss if you were at Belmont Park on October 15th 1954.

A hurricane was brewing and a two-year-old filly named Vestment was blown along to what was then a world record for six furlongs 1:07 4/5ths. Racing entirely on a straightaway down the old Widener Chute. In those days, all two-year-olds ran out of the Widener Chute, and as I started working on the figures their times looked so erratic I figured out the wind was the culprit. Once I began to make wind corrections, betting 2-year-olds in New York became very profitable.

Vestment was not some new Native Dancer. I don't believe she ever won again, because that single performance made her owner shrink from dropping her into claiming races, where she undoubtedly belonged.

Today I pay observers at all major tracks to give me reports on wind. They can tell me exactly when there is a sudden change of wind during the course of the racing card. When I started my wind calculations more than 40 years ago, however, my wind information came by teletype from airports. I was forced to assume that a 15-knot northwest wind recorded at Fort Lauderdale's airport would also prevail at Gulfstream Park. Once I started using local observers, I found that these assumptions held up well - giving me about 90 percent accuracy. Using the observers though, makes the wind calculations 99 percent accurate.