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I think there is comparability between auto racing and horse racing. Watch how the drivers deal with turns or pass other cars. The drivers are closer to the "rail" on the straight. They take almost a straight line to the center of the banked curve and then move back toward the inside on the straightaway. This allows them to keep speed up. In order to use any shorter route the driver would have to slow speed more than they way they typically take corners. Go to a stream, find a curve and you'll see the water slows the closer to the inside bank you get.
We've seen horses come wide out of a turn and mow every horse down in the stretch many times. Could the horse have run faster from the inside? I don't know. I just know wide into the stretch didn't hurt his placing.
I did the calculation for outside v inside on a turn in one of my pieces, and I'm just too lazy to find it. Basically in a two-turn race, wide on both turns can be a big disadvantage. In a sprint, any horse no farther out than the 5 path on the turn doesn't really suffer a big disadvantage. Once inside and outside horses hit the straight, they have the exact same distance to the wire. So looking for courage or closing ability in the stretch is important. I give the inside and outside neither credit or penalty as long as no more than four lanes separate the two horses.
I don't know if it makes sense to everyone. If I was at the track and someone said, "Wide on the turn kept him from winning," I'd say, "Sure did."
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