New Record?

[toetoe]

4th at Del Mar, the final 1/4 goes in 28.45 seconds. I saw it on TV, but I don't remember much. As the snail said after colliding with the tortoise, "It was all a blur."

[Overlay]

Reminds me of the old observation that when you see a horse come thundering down the stretch to be just up at the wire, it's not because he's running faster than the other horses, it's just that he's slowing down the least.

For me, it also called to mind the first half-mile of the 1978 Belmont with Affirmed and Alydar, which was run in :50 and change, and where you knew it was going to be all-out neck-and-neck between those two the rest of the way (which it was).

[toetoe]

Yes, they got credit for the fastest last 8f in Bel history, but the first 4 had to be among the slowest up to that time. As to DM, a later race got the fourth quarter in 25.7 or so. Ah, all's right with the world again.

[Overlay]

Correction to that half-mile time in the '78 Belmont. It was :50 flat, with the final time of 2:26-4/5, so the last mile was run in 1:36-4/5. Not quite up to Secretariat's average of 12 seconds per furlong for the whole race, but better than his 1:37-4/5 for the last mile. (Of course, Secretariat ran the first half-mile in :46-1/5 and the first six furlongs in 1:09-4/5. What a performance!)

[toetoe]

Sorry, but that reminds me of an idea that maybe I've already spewed. Can't we time races from back to front, as in Hong Kong? That way, we can compare 1 & 1/16 races with 1 & 1/8 races and flat miles based on the last mile, last 1/2-mile, etc. Ignore the first uneven part with an odd runup, etc. Instead of catering to the DRF points of call, we could just click the timer a mile from home, and every quarter from there, or every eighth even.