Track ratings explained: the Australian 1 to 10 scale

Track ratings describe how firm or wet a turf racetrack is, on a national scale from 1 to 10: Firm 1 and 2, Good 3 and 4, Soft 5 to 7 and Heavy 8 to 10. In Racing Australia's words a Good 4 is a track with some give in it, a Soft 5 has a reasonable amount of give, and a Heavy 8 is a rain-affected track that horses will get into.

The rating matters to a bet because some horses race very differently on wet ground, and because it can change between the morning report and the jump. It is one line of the meeting header in how to read a form guide, and the descriptions in the table are Racing Australia's (checked 7 October 2026). Racing NSW publishes the same ten steps for its meetings, and Racing Victoria's guidelines call them the turf track ratings used by racing jurisdictions across Australia.

The 1 to 10 scale, step by step

The numbers stayed put when the names changed: Racing Australia's table prints the old names beside the new, so a Dead 4 in an older form line is today's Good 4 and a Slow 7 is a Soft 7. Current form lines write the rating as one word, such as Good4 or Heavy10, as horse racing form abbreviations shows.

What Good 4, Soft 5 and Heavy 8 mean for a race

Good 4 is the soft end of the Good band and the usual target. Racing Victoria's guidelines ask clubs to prepare a Good 4 for at least the first race of a meeting, and never a Firm track. Racing NSW's minimum standards for its Country D clubs ask for watering to reach no firmer than Good 3 by race time.

Soft 5 is the first step into Soft, and on the old scale it shared the name Dead with Good 4. The two sit next to each other, so a horse's Good 4 form is a closer guide to a Soft 5 than the band names suggest.

Heavy 8 is the first step into Heavy, one past the Soft 7 that already chops out: a track that horses will get into. From there to Heavy 10 the ground keeps getting closer to saturation. A runner's Heavy record line counts Heavy 8 together with Heavy 9 and 10, so for a race on Heavy 8, read the exact rating of each heavy run in its dated lines.

How a track rating is set

In Victoria the club rates its own track. Racing Victoria's Racing Surface Preparation Guidelines (version 1.3, revised 25 November 2025) make preparing the surface the club's job under its track manager, and require the club to report the rating accurately and on time in the lead-up to a meeting.

Instruments feed the rating without fixing it. Racing Australia's meeting pages show a penetrometer reading beside the rating, and the track information line often adds more: Flemington's page for 3 October 2026 listed a 6 am inspection with Going Stick, shear and moisture readings. A penetrometer measures how much give the turf has, but the same reading does not mean the same rating at every track. On Racing Australia's Victorian track conditions page on 7 October 2026, two tracks both rated Soft 6 showed readings of 5.74 and 6.35, so compare a reading only with earlier readings at the same track.

The race-morning rating describes the track as it is when inspected. Racing Victoria's guidelines say it must not be what the track may be at the first race once forecast weather arrives. So a Good 4 at dawn can be a Soft 6 by the first race if the rain comes (an illustration, not a forecast).

When ratings are published and changed

Racing Victoria's guidelines set these reporting times; for meetings in other states, check that state's racing body.

Changes during a meeting are posted on Racing Australia's meeting page. At Flemington on 3 October 2026 the track was rated Heavy 10, then upgraded to Heavy 9 after Race 4 and to Heavy 8 after Race 6. A runner in the last race that day met different ground from one in the first, so price each race on the rating at its jump, not the morning report.

Reading a runner's record by track rating

Each runner's entry carries record lines for Firm, Good, Soft, Heavy and Synthetic, written starts:wins-seconds-thirds. They are band totals, so a Soft line lumps every run at Soft 5, 6 and 7 together. The dated lines under the record show the exact rating of each recent run, and the horse's full form page lists every run.

An illustrative runner with a Soft record of 6:1-2-0, broken down by its dated lines:

The band suggests a horse that handles soft ground half the time. The breakdown shows every top-two finish came at Soft 5 or 6, and both Soft 7 runs were unplaced. On a Soft 7 today, the evidence is those two runs, and two runs is a very small sample, a problem wet track form works through.

Why upgrades and downgrades move markets

When the rating changes, the chances of horses whose form differs by ground change too, and bookmakers move their prices. A fixed-odds bet you have already struck keeps its price either way. With illustrative numbers, a meeting that starts on a Soft 7 is upgraded to Soft 5 before your race:

A $10 bet on H at $3.80, struck on the morning rating, is worth 10 x (0.28 x 3.80 - 1) = +$0.64 on your Soft 7 read and 10 x (0.23 x 3.80 - 1) = -$1.26 once the track is Soft 5. The same ticket went from one you wanted to one you would not take, and nothing about the horse changed. G's price fell to $4.80, an implied 1 / 4.80 = 20.8%, close to your 21%: here the market moved about as far as your frame did.

When rain or drying weather is forecast, a price struck early is a bet on the rating as well as the horse. If you cannot frame a runner on both ratings, wait for the update or pass.

Synthetic, sand and dirt tracks

Synthetic tracks sit outside the 1 to 10 turf scale. On Racing Australia's form a synthetic meeting shows the track condition as Synthetic, with no number: Pakenham's synthetic meeting on 5 October 2026 carried a Clegg hammer average of 6.9 in its track information instead of a penetrometer reading. Racing Victoria's Track Preparation Guidelines web page says synthetic racetracks are not categorised under the same ratings system as turf racetracks. In form lines a synthetic run reads Synthetic where a turf run reads Good4 or Soft6, and each runner has its own Synthetic record line.

Racing Australia lists a separate scale for sand or dirt tracks:

A Good on sand or dirt is a different surface from a turf Good 3 or 4, and a turf wet-track record says nothing certain about a horse on either synthetic or dirt.

Mistakes people make with track ratings

1. Pricing on the morning rating when the forecast says it will change. The morning rating is the track at inspection, and the H example turned a +$0.64 ticket into a -$1.26 one.
2. Reading the band as the rating. A Soft record of 6:1-2-0 can hide a horse that has never placed on a Soft 7.
3. Comparing penetrometer readings across tracks. Two Soft 6 tracks showed 5.74 and 6.35 on the same page.
4. Comparing race times across ratings. A time on Heavy 9 and one on Good 3 measure different ground, and so do a Soft 5 and a Soft 7 inside one band, so compare times run on the same rating, at the same track and distance.
5. Treating a rating as fixed for the day. Flemington moved two steps during its meeting on 3 October 2026, and a track bias can shift with the ground.

Where B337 fits when the rating changes

When the rating changes, the prices are where the market's answer shows. B337's Terminal shows each bookmaker's price beside Betfair's back and lay, with price history (flucs) for each price, so after an upgrade or a downgrade you can see which runners firmed, which drifted and by how much on its odds comparison board. How a horse handles the ground is still your call: there is no ratings engine or model in B337, and it makes no selections.

The Terminal reads prices on a repeating cycle rather than tick by tick, so the figure on screen may already be behind the bookmaker's. Check the live price with the bookmaker before you bet, and expect some races to be priced by only some bookmakers. A free account opens a limited view of the Terminal with live odds. Betfair is a trade mark of its owner; B337 is not affiliated with it.