Quote:
Originally Posted by Actor
I've ordered Carroll's book. Amazon says I will get in one or two weeks.
Meanwhile I have doubts as to whether the actual physical length of a horse has anything to do with what is reported. For all I know a length is the distance between the poles holding up the rail. Or the person coming up with this data simply loads the video into his computer, watches it on a video editor, comes up with the actual time a horse was behind the leader (video is 30 frames per second), then applies the 5 lengths per second rule to get the reported lengths.
The actual speed of a horse at any given call will vary with the length of the race and the class. A $10,000 claimer may be going faster at the first call in a five furlong sprint than a G1 stakes horse at the finish of a mile and a quarter.
If a video camera were installed at each call then each horses actual time at each call could be reported. But with the industry dying no one is going to make that investment.
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Correct me if I'm wrong here but there are a number of ways to look at this.
1) Using 1 length / 5th is a convenient standard to even the playing field, as long as it's used with all horses in the race....or just maybe evening the playing field may not be a good thing.
2) If you're calculating an internal
final fraction based on lengths gained or lost, it's difficult to be accurate without taking into account the early fraction as well. If I know a horse was used hard in the first half of a race (assuming he's running 1 length per 5th, I think it's safe to say that in the late part of the race he's probably running less than a full length per 5th. The same has to hold true for a slow first half.
If I'm off base, I apologize.