Racing in Australia is conducted both clockwise and anti-clockwise and it is consistent across States.
For example in the New South Wales, ACT and Queensland horses race in the clockwise direction.
Racing in the remainder of the States, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania and Northern Territory is conducted anti-clockwise.
Sometimes horses when changing racing direction take time to adjust. This is particularly the case when horses travel from Sydney to Melbourne during the major carnivals

RACETRACK SURFACES

In Australia the majority of racing is carried out on turf, but some low level tracks do have sand or dirt racing.
Certainly all major circuit and mid level circuit racing is conducted on turf with the Randwick Kensington and Moonee Valley tracks having Strathayr turf surfaces.
Some low level circuit tracks such as Port Augusta, Alice Springs, Darwin, Bundaberg and Gympie race on dirt or sand surfaces.

TRACK WORK AND BARRIER TRIALS

In Australia most race tracks across all levels have training facilities which are used by the majority of trainers to prepare their horses for race day.
However these training tracks are inside the normal "course proper" used for actual race day.
The training tracks surfaces range from turf, artificial turf, sand to dirt.
On rare occasions Race Club Authorities may permit work outs on the course proper.
In Australia, Race Clubs provide Barrier Trials for trainers to use as conditioning/experience opportunities for horses.
These trials are conducted so as to simulate actual race conditions but horses are not allocated any weights, barrier positions etc.
Because trials are usually education or pre-race conditioning runs, the horses do not have to be ridden out. Jockeys and trainers are not obligated to ensure their horse is given every chance to win.
Some horses have easy runs and are intentionally restrained back in the field while others are ridden hard to gain maximum benefit from the work out.

 TRACK CONDITIONS

There are five track conditions universally used by Racing Authorities when classifying raceday track conditions;

• Fast - track dry and hard. No rain for some time
• Good - track not rock hard but not affected by recent rain.
• Dead - track not completely dry but affected from recent or past rain
• Slow - track affected by past or current rain. Track surface not had a chance to dry out and is soft. Clods of turf thrown up is a clear sign of a slow track.
• Heavy - track very wet (waterlogged) from heavy rain. Horses mark the track badly (track gets badly "marked" and clods thrown up)

Generally horses can handle fast/good and dead tracks with the same level of performance but once a track becomes slow or heavy the performances of horses can be significantly affected.