Quote:
Originally Posted by Whosonfirst
So at the old 55 ft/sec. we're looking at ~4 seconds of running to get up to speed. Does HK and Aus time right from the gate?
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As far as I am aware both HK and Aus do not use a runup. (Somebody please correct me if I am wrong.)
To borrow a phrase from the way Beyer so eloquently put it a Washington Post article back in 2014:
Both HK and Aus
"run races at exact distances and time them from the start."
Washington Post|By Andrew Beyer|March 10, 2014
Horse racing’s runaway run-ups are moving the starting line:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sport...=.525ca9353c1d
Quote:
Because 7 1/2 furlong races are run so often, Gulfstream moves the starting gate to different locations so that it doesn’t inflict too much damage to the grass course. Chuck Streva, Equibase’s conscientious chart-caller, has examined the difference gaps through which the gate moves onto the turf, and he knows that one of them constitutes a 375-foot run-up.
“I’m totally confident of the number we put in the chart,” he said, adding, “These races aren’t even close to 7 1/2 furlongs.”
The whole system is preposterous. Because of run-ups, thoroughbred racing is the only sport that can’t produce accurate timing of its own events. It’s as if the Olympics started clocking a 1,500-meter race after the field had run half a lap. And it’s the only sport in which the participants cannot be sure of the distance at which they’ll be competing. Pompa and trainer Todd Pletcher had no idea that Band of Joy was running a mile and 45 feet instead of the distance they had planned on. It’s as if Usain Bolt stepped onto the track for a 100-meter championship and learned that he’d be running 115 meters today.
Tim Ritvo, president of Gulfstream Park, has come to recognize the absurdities produced by his track’s run-ups. “Two hundred feet is definitely too far,” he said, and promised to make some changes in the 7 1/2 furlong races.
But this isn’t a Gulfstream issue; it’s an industry issue. Del Mar runs a mile on dirt with a 200-foot run-up. Monmouth Park shows Equibase’s maximum 250-foot run-up for many turf races. In a perfect world, thoroughbred racing would do what every other sport does: run races at exact distances and time them from the start.
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-jp
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