Did Fair Grounds Use An Auxiliary Finish Line This Year?
 

For 1-mile dirt races - of which I found many.

Surely there wouldn't be any other way for FG to run them.

No, a mile dirt race at FG is run around 2 turns. See the chart comments for race 15 on Sat, April 1 for corroboration.

Yes, they begin and end those races at the 1/16th pole.

If they also did that in turf races they could run 7 furlongs on the turf. Then there would be only a 1 1/2-furlong gap between the longest one-turn grass race (5 1/2 furlongs) and the shortest two-turn grass race - and if they build a Monmouth-style diagonal chute at the start of the backstretch on the turf course, even 6 furlongs on grass becomes possible (all this applies to Hawthorne as well).

If you have a layout that allows these distances, why not take maximum advantage of it?

What is your obsession with running all these distances? Do you realize how short the stretch would be if they used your idea above for 7f?

Or that an infield chute at FG would be in a swamp.

Apparently these dudes never got the memo:

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