Ahead of the 2019/20 jumps season, Newcastle Racecourse has announced amendments to the distances run on the Hurdle Course. These changes will be in effect from the first meeting of the season on Friday 15 November and are the result of a re-survey of the track and GPS analysis of running lines.
A summary of the amendments is as such:
| OFFICIAL START | PREVIOUS DISTANCE | NEW DISTANCE | REPOSITION? |
| 1m6f NHF | 1m6f +139yds | 1m6f +66yds | No |
| 2m | 2m +98yds | 2m +46yds | No |
| 2m4f | 2m4f +133yds | 2m4f +62yds | No |
| 2m6f* | 2m6f exactly | 2m6f exactly | Yes |
| 3m | 3m +10yds | 2m7f +149yds | No |
* The 2m6f start previously advertised as 2m6f exactly was surveyed at 2m6f +15yds. The start will be moved accordingly to offer 2m6f exactly.
The GPS tracking of jumps horses at Newcastle in conjunction with Total Performance Data (“TPD”) highlighted some small inconsistencies in the distances run on the hurdle track, which lead to the remeasurement and surveying programme undertaken by MK Surveys.
Newcastle Clerk of the Course James Armstrong stated, “We’ve been very pleased to work with TPD for a number of years at Newcastle, primarily offering sectional timing and striding data, initially on our flat races.
“More recently, we have been working with them to offer similar data for jumps racing and in that testing process, we were able to identify some distance issues with our hurdle starts, so have been able to resurvey and amend them to offer a greater degree of accuracy and move starts where appropriate ahead of the start of this season”.
TPD tracking is similarly being introduced across ARC jumps tracks over the course of the winter, adding to the publically available speed and stride data that is available on At The Races online.
