How Long is a Length?

[Dave Schwartz]

I am curious what most people are thinking these days about how many feet are in a length.

I'm sure that most people are pretty sure that 10 feet is a bit short.

[bobphilo]

Originally Posted by Dave Schwartz

I am curious what most people are thinking these days about how many feet are in a length.

I'm sure that most people are pretty sure that 10 feet is a bit short.

Just the opposite. Ten feet is too big. Charles Carroll makes a very good case for a length being about 7 or 8 feet. I Like the way he says that a length being 10 feet only applies if your talking about Clydesdale racing.

[Tom]

How long? About .166 seconds.

I would say 8 feet, but I believe 9 is used by the industry, so that is what I use. 10 feet is easiest.

When you talk about lengths other than the finish, I see no need for precision as no one has a real idea how far horse are apart on the turns. It all eyeball. For internal, I use under a length, 1, 1.5, 2,3,4 etc,

[bobphilo]

I recall from a previous thread on this subject that cj uses 8 feet per length, which matches Carroll's research. I find this number useful when calculating how many lengths a horse losses due to ground loss by dividing the Trakus delta number by 8.

[Augenj]

Once upon a time, I calculated the speed of a horse at the finish as the sum of the Equibase speed rating and the variant. Trouble is that speed and variant use 1/5 (.20) second and this turned out to be too long when I calculated speed and winners. It's more like .15 second in a bell curve of winning horses.

Therefore, .15 second "might" be the length of a horse traveling at xx miles per hour, whatever that is. I wasn't smart enough to calculate the variant difference between sprinters and routers so I used .15 as my length constant for speed and variant.

CJ will laugh at this but moving on... If you buy into this and say that .15 second is the length of a horse and he runs 1 mile (5,280 feet) in 1 minute 36 seconds (96 seconds) then he's running 55 feet per second. A length would be .15 times 55 which is 8.25 feet or the approximate length of a race horse.

Let me put the Merlot away and come back later.

[Elliott Sidewater]

Originally Posted by Tom

How long? About .166 seconds.

I would say 8 feet, but I believe 9 is used by the industry, so that is what I use. 10 feet is easiest.

When you talk about lengths other than the finish, I see no need for precision as no one has a real idea how far horse are apart on the turns. It all eyeball. For internal, I use under a length, 1, 1.5, 2,3,4 etc,

Tom: As I recall we debated this endlessly in the Sartin Methodology. The answer that I remember being settled upon was 8 1/2 feet, although I doubt that the computer programs used that value. I'm pretty sure that the early programs did use 10 feet.

[cj]

Originally Posted by bobphilo

I recall from a previous thread on this subject that cj uses 8 feet per length, which matches Carroll's research. I find this number useful when calculating how many lengths a horse losses due to ground loss by dividing the Trakus delta number by 8.

8 is about right, but if you want to match the industry, 9 works better.

[Dave Schwartz]

Excellent answers!

Thank you.

(I was concerned that if I took a position that supported what I'd found that people would be less inclined to agree with me. I really wouldn't answers like these.)

[mountainman]

Originally Posted by Tom

How long? About .166 seconds.

I would say 8 feet, but I believe 9 is used by the industry, so that is what I use. 10 feet is easiest.

When you talk about lengths other than the finish, I see no need for precision as no one has a real idea how far horse are apart on the turns. It all eyeball. For internal, I use under a length, 1, 1.5, 2,3,4 etc,

What's even worse? Some incompetent chart-callers cheat on internal calls and start making them WELL before the leader reaches the appropriate pole. Others start at the correct point, but call like molasses, catching the rear half well AFTER the pole. And I would not assume replays are always used to double-check margins.

[Robert Fischer]

fwiw I've heard anywhere between 8-10 feet (or the chart-callers' eye) for intra-race calls, and 0.18 seconds at the finish line.


had to look up some old stuff. I don't stress precision with this stuff when handicapping.

[therussmeister]

This issue has been under discussion since before I started playing in 1985. I think it's really curious that such debates can go on for so long when there exists such things as horses and tape measures.

[HalvOnHorseracing]

One of the reasons I like Formulator is that you can get the fractions/finish for each individual horse (instead of the leader fractions), making it unnecessary to adjust times for horses behind the leader by using the estimated lengths behind. Just saves a little work and time.

I think most track announcers do a good job of estimating lengths except when it is a long way from one horse to the next.

[cj]

Originally Posted by Robert Fischer

fwiw I've heard anywhere between 8-10 feet (or the chart-callers' eye) for intra-race calls, and 0.18 seconds at the finish line.


had to look up some old stuff. I don't stress precision with this stuff when handicapping.

Not to nitpick too much, but it isn't 0.18 at the finish. It varies with distance, could be anywhere from 0.14 at short distances to 0.17, maybe 0.18 at really long ones.

[cj]

Originally Posted by HalvOnHorseracing

One of the reasons I like Formulator is that you can get the fractions/finish for each individual horse (instead of the leader fractions), making it unnecessary to adjust times for horses behind the leader by using the estimated lengths behind. Just saves a little work and time.

I think most track announcers do a good job of estimating lengths except when it is a long way from one horse to the next.

This, of course, is just using the estimated beaten lengths and converting it to time. This is how I learned the industry standard is 9 feet, backtracking to see how they were calculating individual times.

[Nitro]

Originally Posted by therussmeister

This issue has been under discussion since before I started playing in 1985. I think it's really curious that such debates can go on for so long when there exists such things as horses and tape measures.

I think it started and became a popular topic after "Picking Winners" (by Andy B) was released back in the 70’s. After reading about it, I was always curious as to how this static measurement (whatever it happens to be) can account for horses of varying size and running stride (which I might add also varies at different points of call). A good example for comparison would be to think about how a horse like good old Forego could move 34 feet in a single (measured) stride while making its typical stretch drive. This dynamic of course varies dramatically from one horse to another.

Say what you will, but I stand by my premise that you can’t use an exact science like Math to conjure up subjective figures and expect to accurately evaluate one horse’s performance with another’s. There are just too many variables to consider.