With Melbourne's gilt-edged spring stars strutting their stuff in this week's Memsie Stakes at Caulfield - featuring Horse of the Year Typhoon Tracy, Cox Plate winner So You Think, "forgotten" dual Group 1 winner Whobegotyou (pictured above) and emerging champion Shoot Out - racing's biggest talking point from last weekend was the Moonee Valley track, as opposed to the horses on top of it.

The most overused and least understood term in the sport is "track bias" and it also results in unnecessary paranoia that is fuelled by the media and needlessly feared by administrators.

(For those reading this column whose Flemington intentions this November are restricted to suiting (or frocking) up, playing up and picking up at the big race days, then I've perhaps delved into racing-speak too fast. The "track" is the grassy circular surface situated behind the marquees, and the "spring stars" I've named are called horses and they race on it.)

Yet "track bias", along with its half-brother "tempo", are the two biggest things that can give you an edge when trying to beat the bookies.

Before I explain the Moonee Valley situation, I need to declare an interest: for the past two years I have been the on-course MC for the feature race-days and all the night meetings there.

So while my opinions, thoughts and observations might be regarded by some as compromised, I believe that I'm the only person to have witnessed every race at the track live during this period and certainly the only one who's been charged with analyzing all of them on the spot, and as such have a fair handle on a typical day's - or night's - events.

So last week Moonee Valley copped it because unless the horses either led or tracked the rail behind the lead, they didn't win.

Which is where I and others who analyze the form say, "Well der!"

The fact is the track raced no differently to how it normally races when it is rain-affected, and the moveable rail is placed out four metres from its "true" or regular position.

Whether it happens because the track's camber flattens out the wider the rail is placed, the leaders are going so slow up front that they plenty of petrol in the tank for the sprint home, or horses that make wide swooping runs trigger a curse from the devil whenever the rail is out, who knows?

But to write that "most punters ... were left frustrated and confused" as one Herald Sun racing writer did, suggests that most horse players have no idea what they're doing, which in turn undersells followers of the sport.

Those of us who like to put down a shekel or two behind our opinions at the track, but wouldn't drop a bad penny into a poker machine, do so because as the result of a horse race is a series of uncertain yet explainable outcomes, there's great satisfaction that arises from correctly predicting HOW a race will be run.

Much like former St Kilda coach Grant Thomas being the first AFL coach to say that if the correct processes are put in place the results will eventually speak for themselves, if you work out where horses will be positioned after 400 metres, (the speed map) and how fast they will be going (tempo) you'll give yourself an edge when assessing whether it's worth having a punt on a runner (value).

So I'd strongly argue that any punter worth his salt would have been neither frustrated nor confused by the strong rails-advantaged track!

Interestingly, the betting turnover figures remain strong, suggesting that professional punters really "open the shoulders," and as such the financial ledger is unaffected or in some cases even enhanced.

After all, if you can eliminate who CAN'T win, it's easier to work out who can!

And before the owners' lobby huffs and puffs about how "their" horses are denied a "fair go" on a day like that, there is an art to placing or running your horse in the right race.

As the old saying goes: "Keep yourself in the best company and your horses in the worst." So if you decide to place a get-back or swooping horse that's drawn a wide barrier - in a race on a day that's likely to make their chances of winning a lot tougher than usual - then you cop your right whack when it gets beaten.

So as mentioned we head to Caulfield this week for what promises to be a spring standard meeting in winter, and assume that the track will race like it normally does at this time of year, the game-plan should be to back the leaders early in the day and the swoopers late.

And that's the unbiased tip!

"Racetrack" Ralphy Horowitz is a full-time racing analyst for private clients and media commentator for Sport 927. He is a former producer at 3AW, SEN, The Footy Show, & Sunday Footy Show. (And after this column he hopes he is still host at Moonee Valley, too!)