common errors
One of the most common errors I see in other photo finish presentations in not matching the scan rate to the velocity of the horses at the wire..That rate is obviously different for harness horses versus thoroughbreds the latter being faster.
Yonkers raceway often presents photos for public consumption that are TOO Fast as compared to the velocity of the horses....Observing the shape of the sulky wheels is a give away...If they look mashed, with an increased front to back shape (oval), the scan was too slow, and conversely, if they are OVOID in the up to down diameter, the scan was too fast.
On the thoroughbred side, Turf Paradise tends to be too slow as the horses look ELONGATED and unnatural in the public photos. The opposite situation would look foreshortened (when the start car at the harness races is captured at the tail end of a scan, the length from front to rear is really foreshortened as it was travelling MUCH faster than the horses at the wire.)
By law, EVERY horse that finishes race, must be captured on a photo...When there is a straggler (horse broke stride at the harness races,or a straggler has been eased in a thoroughbred contest) their relative size on the scan is dramatically elongated as at that point in the race, BOTH are going so much slower than the rest of the field.
Now BOTH situations will NOT change the relative order of finish but are aesthetically NOT representative of a properly exposed photo.
Odd things picked up on photos: birds, REAL BRIGHT spots where the sun makes a bright reflection off the harness tack, and finally (Woodbine is on the glide path to the international airport) shadows of passenger jets covering some of the horses in the scan.
Old Suffolk Downs NEVER got their color balance correct as it was always TOO GREEN.
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"If this world is all about winners, what's for the losers?" Jr. Bonner: "Well somebody's got to hold the horses Ace."
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