Horse Racing Forum - PaceAdvantage.Com - Horse Racing Message Board

Go Back   Horse Racing Forum - PaceAdvantage.Com - Horse Racing Message Board


View Single Post
Old 11-14-2022, 11:15 AM   #9
46zilzal
velocitician
 
46zilzal's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 26,248
Quote:
Originally Posted by mountainman View Post
When I worked as a placing judge, we matched the finish- slit up to the mirror's center. Somehow, it always shifted, and with us reluctant-especially during winter-to trudge across the surface, it usually STAYED misaligned.

That's one reason-but not the only reason- I never trusted mirror images in determining order of finish. For me, the mirror was only a LAST resort.

I will say it was sometimes helpful before high def and colored splashdowns in discerning which runners the noses belonged to. Working with fuzzy black and white images, that part could get much more dicey than players might have realized.
Our Finish Lynx system had a calibration program that I ran pre-race each day, that assured (based upon STABLE points perpendicular to opposite sides of the track) where the exact point of the finish line was. In British Columbia, we had a federal regulator (we called him regulator Rick) who would RANDOMLY come up to my office and have me run that program in his presence to assure it was done regularly. When you ran the program, those stable points would leave an image (when the camera was running continuously) would leave EQUALLY spaced lines on the top and bottom of the scan.....If they were NOT equal,we would have to carefully manipulate the angle of the camera until they were of equal representation on the continuous scan.

I had to trudge out to the inner rail at once or twice a season, and clean the mirror (particularly when the Woodbine surface was PolyTrack that stuck on everything including your shoes walking out there...NASTY STUFF particularly when it got hot out)

If there was ANY question about perpendicularity (which I NEVER SAW) it would have been most likely from NOT having run that calibration program. On the computer screen image we had a perpendicular line that was mobile (laterally) that would be placed over each nose...IF the mirror and scanned image were out of alignment, that line WOULD NOT touch both noses exactly the same and that was something I NEVER SAW ONCE at the thoroughbreds of standardbreds.

To the original question: CENTER of the mirror
__________________
"If this world is all about winners, what's for the losers?" Jr. Bonner: "Well somebody's got to hold the horses Ace."

Last edited by 46zilzal; 11-14-2022 at 11:16 AM.
46zilzal is offline   Reply With Quote Reply
 
» Advertisement
Powered by vBadvanced CMPS v3.2.3

All times are GMT -4. The time now is 07:10 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Copyright 1999 - 2023 -- PaceAdvantage.Com -- All Rights Reserved
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program
designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.