The Australian Racing Board has decided to modernise the language for track ratings to be more easily understood by punters especially young people. The ARB issued a revised scale in January and called for public and industry input. Retention of the numerical scale of 1-10 was strongly endorsed by punters whilst most of the submissions centred on the proposed ratings.
The new ratings will come into effect on 1 December, 2014 as extensive changes are required to the IT systems and data feeds of RISA and their commercial customers. The delay in introduction is due to the need to backdate track conditions so as to accurately record a horses’ performance.
| Rating | Numerical rating | Description of Numerical Rating |
| Firm | 1 | Dry hard track |
| Firm | 2 | Firm track with reasonable grass coverage |
| Good | 3 | Track with good grass coverage and cushion |
| Good | 4 | Track with some give in it |
| Soft | 5 | Track with a reasonable amount of give in it |
| Soft | 6 | Moist but not a badly affected track |
| Soft | 7 | More rain-affected track that will chop out |
| Heavy | 8 | Rain affected track that horse get into |
| Heavy | 9 | Wet track getting into a squelchy area |
| Heavy | 10 | Heaviest category track, very wet, towards saturation |