U.K. Distances

[eqitec]

I'm trying to adapt my software for UK races, using the ".drf" file from BRIS. I'm noticing a huge # of different distances, much more so than in the USA. In many cases there are very small difference in the distances of the PPs reported; e.g., for races about 5F, they are reported as 5.09F, 5.15F, 5.2F, 5.25F, 5.27F.
Am I understanding this correctly? Is it that they position the starting lines in many different spots and report the actual PP distance from that spot? It's wierd that they would be so precise with this when so much else about UK PPs are imprecise or missing altogether.

[Humph]

They do move the gates at many of the bigger, straight tracks - they (gates) can be in the middle, stand's side, far side, or, even, around 30 runners right across the track - but I've never known race distances to be measured with such precision in the UK - well, not unless a track's configuration dictates that certain races are, for safety reasons, run over slighty odd distances. Take Sandown for example. They run no 12 furlong events there - it would mean starting races on a bend - but stage 1 mile 3 furlongs and 91 yards events, which is the closest the gates can be safely positioned to the 12 pole.

If the data you mentioned occured at tracks with straight miles, the only explanation I can think of for such detail is, indeed, for the sake of exactness.