Why does horse racing use 1/5 seconds?

[Smarty Cide]

Anyone know why horse racing uses fifths of a second instead of tenths like the rest of the sports world?

[Overlay]

I would say that it traces back to 1/5 of a second being considered the same as one length of distance.

[BettinBilly]

A horse runs five lengths in 1 second. 1/5 of a second is 1 length.

That is the explanation I got from guys at the track in the 80's when I asked that question. I had to ask. We didn't have the internet. :)

[horses4courses]

I'll wager that many of the horses I bet on don't run five lengths/second ;)

[Robert Goren]

It dates back to at least the early 1960s and probably a lot further back than that.

[BettinBilly]

I'll wager that many of the horses I bet on don't run five lengths/second ;)

That's funny. Well, you know what they say, it's the law of "Averages" we're measuring. Averages.

[WATT Wizard]

There are two things that have always mystified me after handicapping the horses for 40+ years:

1) Why would ANYBODY consider 1/10th of a second more accurate than 1/5 of a second except maybe in a photo finish at the line? One little misstep anytime during the race and more than 1/5 can be lost. 1/10th is meaningless. I would say anything less that 1/5 isn't even for eggs.

2) Why would any handicapper consider a 1 mile race to be a route rather than a sprint. Around two turns, okay, but knowing the way a horse is ridden (rated) and looking at the splits tells a completely different story.

Interesting sport, this horseracing.

[TheEdge07]

There are two things that have always mystified me after handicapping the horses for 40+ years:

1) Why would ANYBODY consider 1/10th of a second more accurate than 1/5 of a second except maybe in a photo finish at the line? One little misstep anytime during the race and more than 1/5 can be lost. 1/10th is meaningless. I would say anything less that 1/5 isn't even for eggs.

2) Why would any handicapper consider a 1 mile race to be a route rather than a sprint. Around two turns, okay, but knowing the way a horse is ridden (rated) and looking at the splits tells a completely different story.

Interesting sport, this horseracing.
Why would any handicapper consider a 1 mile race to be a route rather than a sprint.

Agree 100 % and I would say 7f is more of a route then one mile.

[barn32]

I would say 1/5 of a second is used because stop watches (back in the day) were demarcated in fifths of a second.

[Tom]

And a stop watch, in this game , is HIGH tech! :rolleyes:

[JimG]

And a stop watch, in this game , is HIGH tech! :rolleyes:

Certainly is at Gulfstream! :lol:

[andtheyreoff]

Many tracks use tenths, it's only a matter if they display it on the board in tenths or fifths. So while at Monmouth Park, for example, the time is shown on the tote board and on the TV screen in fifths, you can find them in the charts in tenths: http://www.equibase.com/premium/eqbPDFChartPlus.cfm?RACE=A&BorP=P&TID=MTH&CTRY=USA&DT=7/6/2013&DAY=D&STYLE=EQB

I'd actually be surprised if there was a track that only timed in fifths.

[PhantomOnTour]

Don't they all time in hundredths?
They display whatever they want, but the official charts all use hundredths, if I'm not mistaken.

Don't know about smaller tracks (which have no splits at all for some races) but the charts from BRIS show hundredths.

[affirmedny]

In reality thoroughbreds run much faster than 5 lengths per second. Harness racing uses the same formula to give you an example of how flawed it is.

[LottaKash]

I say why split hairs....

In the 1983 book "The Race is Pace", author Huey Mahl once said: "Look at your wristwatch as 3-seconds tick by. Not very long, is it ?. Yet that is about the difference between a $1,000 claimer and a $100,000 super horse in a sprint! "...
-----------------------------

I use pace in my handicapping, and I firmly do not believe that a 10th or a 5th of a second makes much of a difference in the scheme and totality of the race ......What matters most to me is the relationship between the running line and the first and each succeeding fraction thereafter, versus what a horse accomplished during the running of those fractions....The effort and the length of sustainability of that effort put forth vs. the pace....

I like my contenders to have the ability to Set, Maintain, or Overcome the pace of any given race vs. his opponent(s) ability....I just do not believe that measuring "the blink of an eye" is worth anything, given the whole picture of any given race...It is the "sustainability and length of it" in a horse versus any given pace scenario that always catches my eye, and leads the way in my handicapping..... a point 1 or point 0 just gets lost in the overall picture of a race, imo..

Or to put it another way for anyone who would disagree with my way of looking at things.....How does this sound ?....I predict that my horse will win by a 10th of a second or a 5th of a second...Well, that is how I see it anyway..

My bottom line is: If a horse can SMO any pace, and is well placed, and is fit enough to prove this ability, then I could care less about any 5th or 10th of a second discrepancy in my pace assessments...:cool:

[clocker7]

I would say that it traces back to 1/5 of a second being considered the same as one length of distance.
Not 100% sure, but your are probably correct. In earlier years, the splits were in 1/4 of a second because of the timing technology of the times.

[BettinBilly]

It's because US Teletimer Corp could not manufacture clocks accurate enough to 1/10th of a second, so they settled on 1/5ths. Hey, it was good enough back in the day. :)

Kidding.

Well, as I posted early in this tread, I asked guys at the track in the mid 80's and they immediately said because horses run an average of 5 lengths per second, so 1/5 = 1 length.

Since I believed them, if I find out that it is NOT true, I'll be disappointed that I was the victim of a track myth all these years.

[Cratos]

According the Daily Racing Form official charts, the 25th Preakness which was run on May, 29, 1900 was timed in 1:38 2/5 seconds for the 1-1/16 distance at that time. Prior to that, the Preakness was timed in ¼ second increments.

In reviewing the American Teletimer website the following excerpt was found:

"Our U.S. registered trademark, Teletimer®, is synonymous with racetrack timing.

Teletimer® timing systems have the capability to accurately provide fractional and finish times (in 1/5ths, 1/10ths or 1/100ths of a second) for any distance race on dirt or turf tracks including an unlimited number of turf course lanes.

Times are and always have been accurately reported, not estimated nor produced. “

However there wasn’t any info about when American Teletimer first started timing horse races.

[Smarty Cide]

kinda think its time for a change... lets go to 1/10s

[Show Me the Wire]

May I offer another line of reasoning? If the average stride of race horses' is 20 feet and if race horses average 2 1/2 strides per second the average horse would cover 50 feet in one second. If the average length is 10 feet the average race horse would cover 5 lengths per second.

[Longshot6977]

I do not know why horse racing using 1/5 seconds, but I'd like to mention this. Who says a length is 8 feet or 10 or 12? Some horses are longer or shorter than others, and their strides are different lengths. I think it originated with the measurement of a Hand to measure a horse's height. I THINK it was Tom Brohamer's MPH book where I read the author mentioned 6 lengths per second was more accurate than 5 lengths per sec. A few authors actually mentioned that too. But that should be for a sprint. Maybe 4 or 5 lengths per second for a longer race or marathon.

But we need to do away with this archaic method and use something like feet per second or actual distance traveled for feet behind or ahead of the next horse. And if Secretariat won by 31 lengths, how much of a distance is that really. 310 feet? 248 feet?

[Horseplayersbet.com]

'Until the 1970s, for pace handicapping purposes, the time generally allotted by pace handicappers for a horse to run a length (approximately 11 feet) during the course of a race was long thought to be a fifth of a second. Andrew Beyer was the first to contest this in his 1975 book Picking Winners, stating that the time span of a beaten length (at the end of the race) varied by race distance, as horses would be traveling faster at the end of shorter distanced races than they would at longer ones.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handicapping

The math. 660 feet in a furlong. Divide that by 11 (the distance to run 1 length) and you get 60. 60 lengths in a furlong, divide by 5 and you get 12 seconds (the estimated average time it takes for an average horse to run 1 furlong in a mid at a standard distance of 6 furlongs to a 1 mile.