Excerpt:
One such thread that started about 2 1/2 years ago on PaceAdvantage.com lists 588 posts that have been viewed 81,460 times by forum readers under the heading “Fractional Time Errors.” The tracks alleged to have mistakes range from small- and mid-level venues to the sport’s most elite race meets.
Pointing out timing errors is hardly new. In a 2014 Washington Post column titled “Horse Racing’s Runaway Run-ups are Moving the Starting Line,” Andrew Beyer, the dean of turf writing and the creator of Beyer Speed Figures, wrote that the system of allowing up to hundreds of feet between the starting gate and when the first horse triggers the electronic timing beam is “preposterous” because “Thoroughbred racing is the only sport that can’t produce accurate timing of its own events…. In a perfect world, Thoroughbred racing would do what every other sport does: Run races at exact distances and time them from the start.”
Earlier this year, Craig Milkowski of TimeformUS wrote in a blog post that the problem might be bigger than it appears at first glance. As an example at just one repeat offender, he cited data from 2009 through 2017 at Gulfstream Park showing the popular 7 1/2-furlong distance had been run nearly 800 times over the Florida’s track’s grass course. Yet in races at that distance, an astounding 100 different course set-ups were used, including one rail- and gate-placement configuration that resulted in a run-up of 384 feet–exceeding the sixteenth-of-a-mile gaffe at Saratoga on Wednesday by a full 54 feet.
