Question Regarding Rail in Turf Races

[sq764]

I have always paid attention to the announcement of how far the rail is set out on the turf course in the beginning of the race card. With that being said, I have never, to this day, understood how to utilize that information. I am assuming that if the rail is set out at a certain distance, it may create a bias. Is this something relevant to everyone's handicapping??

Scott

[karlskorner]

Scott

If the rail is set out 25' for a mile race, the rail horse runs an additional 157.4 feet To get a better understanding, count the space between 16 "down rails" and you will get some idea how much further the rail horse has to run in a mile race. Do the math and you will understand why the 4 or 5 path horse will be running almost 1/16 of a mile further.

Karl

[ridersup]

Scott

I believe it was Karlskorner who provided this board with a formula for determining how much distance was added to the race by setting the rail at different distances.

My personal observations indicate that this formula was pretty much on the money.

Last season I recorded all turf race times at the various rail settings at Tampa Bay Downs. 1 Mi times are:

For MSW with the rail set at 0 fractions were
47.4 112.3 137.3

For Msw with the rail set at 12 feet the fx were

47.3 113.2 138.4

For Msw with the rail set at 22 feet the fx were

49.2 115 140.3

As you can see with the rail out to the last setting time and distance increase considerably.

In my opinion keeping track of the rail settings gives you a little advantage against your fellow handicapper.

One thing I didn't put into the equation is the position of the starting gate. I have been told that the starting gate is moved from time to time to keep the horses from tearing up the turf. Ill check this out this season.

[superfecta]

I don't think it has so much to do with how far they are running,as it has to do with where the starting beam is in relationship to the starting gate.
The beam is not necessarily at the starting gate,it may be yards away,depending on the track configuration or the distance being run.So in some races,the horses are timed from a running start.

[ranchwest]

Superfecta,

I believe that is a different problem.

In turf races, they move the rail in and out, so the circumferance expands and contracts as the rail is moved. That accounts for different times from the same distance.

The running start is, I believe, generally about the same at a particular distance at a particular track, so that shouldn't account for a difference in times.

[karlskorner]

Ranchwest;

The fact that the turf rail (aka as dogs) are moved at the discretion of the maintenance crew, is the reason you will find the final times for a 1 1/16th race (or what ever) different and unless you have records to indicate what the rail was set at, or if there was a rail set at all, the final and internal times are useless (one of the reasons I keep charts). As an example if the final time for a 1 1/16 mile race was 146.1 with no rail up and the final time for a 1 1/16 mile race with the rail set out at 25', which is the fastest horse ?

The fact that the gate is set back anywhere from 50' to 100' from the light, gives credence to the people who use the "sheets" or Jerry Brown's Thorograph, as both of these publications are "hand timed" from the gate giving the "user" a more accurate "time" of the race.

But then again, "time" is only the concern of those who are in jail.

Karl

[cash]

just a thought, but wouldn't moving the rails also effect the distance a horse travels during the various segments of the race? if you move the rail out but don't change the position of the timer, then , say, the final fraction of a mile turf race may be more than 1320 feet. the same situation may be true for the interior segments of the race. several months ago i posted here looking for a copy of an article by Elliot Sidewater in the old Sartin mag The Follow Up. It was a good description of this phenomenon.

[ranchwest]

Karlskorner,

I understand and agree.

As I stated in some thread here, there's just dozens of things that can affect "time". I don't think I mentioned the wind or post position in that post. Shoot, I've seen races where deer and geese and all sorts of things have hit horses. Then, there's the horse on the loose and there's traffic problems. There's hiding in the fog to shatter the track record in a cheap claiming race. There's shadow jumping. On and on.

I do look at time, but looking at the times in the Form certainly isn't the exact science some would have us believe.

[JimH]

Of course moving the rail out extends the distance of the race. Which is why some tracks (Delaware for one) officially announce any race with a portable rail as "ABOUT" distance.

As for the other stuff, yes the gate is moved all the time but the timer starting point is constant. So, occasionally you're dealing with a running start which can vary from race to race.

The purpose of the portable rail is to save the turf course. This way, the horses are running over a different part of the course each day as the rail moves in and out. (If you want to see what kind of damage having horses run over the same portion of the track every race can do, look at any natural-grass football field and notice the difference in the wear-and-tear between the hashmarks as opposed to the part of the field between the big numbers and the sidelines, just because of where the action is.)

As for biases, from my observations (and no, I can't explain why this happens), the further out the portable rail, the more off-the-pace-favoring the course seems to become. It may have something to do with the races being a few feet longer, or it may have something to do with the outside closers now running on a virtually unused part of the course (better footing, ya know), or a combination of these two things, or something else.