Secretariat didn't really win Belmont by 31 lengths

[cj]

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Last edited by cj; 07-31-2017 at 12:01 PM.

[Seabiscuit@AR]

He definitely did not win by 31 lengths I agree and your 24.5 lengths looks about right

The caller has him winning by an estimated 25 lengths. Caller of course is only taking an educated guess but with 300 yards to go the caller has him 18 lengths in front, then 22 lengths in front with 140 yards to go and then 25 lengths at the finish. No way he puts 13 lengths on them in the last few hundred yards

I think I read somewhere that the original official winning margin was 24 lengths but they upped it to 31 lengths as it meant he broke some record???

[jay68802]

I was 7 years old and watched this race on a 13" black and white TV. It made me a fan of this sport. I don't care if he won by 31, 27, or 24 lengths, it was still one of the most dominating wins in history.

[cj]

Originally Posted by jay68802

I was 7 years old and watched this race on a 13" black and white TV. It made me a fan of this sport. I don't care if he won by 31, 27, or 24 lengths, it was still one of the most dominating wins in history.

As for his place in history, it is pretty irrelevant. What I'm pointing out is that the method we use is flawed. The 1973 Belmont was over 44 years ago, so hardly a big deal. I'd expect flawed methods. The Shuvee was less than 24 hours ago. I expect better. We haven't improved at all.

[Fager Fan]

I thought a length was 8 feet, not 9.

Regardless, if anyone really cares, we have the means to measure I'm sure, and not using time to do so. I can measure my lot using online tools.

[cj]

Originally Posted by Fager Fan

I thought a length was 8 feet, not 9.

Regardless, if anyone really cares, we have the means to measure I'm sure, and not using time to do so. I can measure my lot using online tools.

Eight is probably closer to reality if the horse is standing still. I used 9 because that is what the photo companies and Trakus use. They don't publish this anywhere, but it can be pretty easily extrapolated. However, what they do is use the average speed of the overall race to calculate beaten lengths, not how fast horses are traveling at the end of the race. That is where things get distorted.

As for measuring the distance, you really can't. The race doesn't end when the winner hits the wire. There are many times I wish it did for betting purposes, but we've all experienced that a few times I'm sure. "Beaten lengths" are nothing but an expression of time...the difference in time it took for the horse to cross the finish line after the winner. It is a poor expression of this but seems to have stuck around for some unknown reason. Harness racing and quarter horses give you the time of every finisher, and thoroughbred racing could easily do the same too. They just choose not to do so.

What I did here was show how many lengths back the runner up was when the winner hit the wire. That is really a pretty meaningless piece of data. What matters is the time of each horse at the wire. But we don't get that, we get a flawed representation of it.

[dilanesp]

Originally Posted by Seabiscuit@AR

He definitely did not win by 31 lengths I agree and your 24.5 lengths looks about right

The caller has him winning by an estimated 25 lengths. Caller of course is only taking an educated guess but with 300 yards to go the caller has him 18 lengths in front, then 22 lengths in front with 140 yards to go and then 25 lengths at the finish. No way he puts 13 lengths on them in the last few hundred yards

I think I read somewhere that the original official winning margin was 24 lengths but they upped it to 31 lengths as it meant he broke some record???

2 callers-BOTH Anderson AND Johnson said 25.

But I don't care. 31 is official. I didn't like it when they gave him the Preakness record either. We should not be revising the results of races years later.

31 lengths is horse racing's version of 56 in a row or 100 points in a game.

[cj]

Originally Posted by dilanesp

2 callers-BOTH Anderson AND Johnson said 25.

But I don't care. 31 is official. I didn't like it when they gave him the Preakness record either. We should not be revising the results of races years later.

31 lengths is horse racing's version of 56 in a row or 100 points in a game.

Those actually happened. 31 lengths did not.

For the record, not saying history should be revised or anything. I'm just showing the methods in place today are seriously flawed.

[dilanesp]

Originally Posted by cj

Those actually happened. 31 lengths did not.

For the record, not saying history should be revised or anything. I'm just showing the methods in place today are seriously flawed.

Honestly at this point we should just be using individual times like track and field and swimming, not "lengths". A length is a mythical measurement, like college football championships back in the day.

[Rex Phinney]

What was Twice a Prince's time?

I always use the 1 second= 5 lengths assumption and I'm curious to know what that would yield.

[cj]

Originally Posted by dilanesp

Honestly at this point we should just be using individual times like track and field and swimming, not "lengths". A length is a mythical measurement, like college football championships back in the day.

Lengths make some sense at the fractional calls. They aren't particularly accurate, but the chart caller is attempting to give a distance behind the leader. At the finish, it is pure poppycock.

[cj]

Originally Posted by Rex Phinney

What was Twice a Prince's time?

I always use the 1 second= 5 lengths assumption and I'm curious to know what that would yield.

4.30 seconds behind, so it would be 21.5 by that method.

[AltonKelsey]

A little confused here.

Since the strip camera takes a picture of the horses as they cross the wire, and presumably they are measuring BL off that photo, isn't that the same as each horses finishing time?

The distortion is, the BL will be different than the snapshot of what was the case as the winner crossed the wire.

[Rex Phinney]

Originally Posted by cj

4.30 seconds behind, so it would be 21.5 by that method.

Thanks for that info, google failed me trying to find it.

[dilanesp]

Originally Posted by AltonKelsey

A little confused here.

Since the strip camera takes a picture of the horses as they cross the wire, and presumably they are measuring BL off that photo, isn't that the same as each horses finishing time?

The distortion is, the BL will be different than the snapshot of what was the case as the winner crossed the wire.

The problem is that a "length" can-- and traditionally has-- meant two things.

It means both (1) the distance between the first horse and the second horse when the first horse hits the wire-- this is what racecallers mean when they say "Gluepot wins it by 3 lengths!"; and (2) the elapsed time, expressed as a distance, between when the first horse hits the wire and when the second horse does-- this is what a photo finish strip measures.

(Of course, there's also no universal agreement as to what a "length" even is, because some horses are longer than others.)

And while there's not much difference between (1) and (2) in a typical race (in a typical race, if the is 1 1/2 lengths in front of the as she hits the wire, the photo strip will also show her 1 1/2 lengths in front); there can be a big difference when the winner wins off, because if the winner and second place horse are traveling different speeds, the distance between the two horses will change between when the first place finisher hits the wire and when the second place finisher does.

And horse racing has not cared about this very much, because we've used "lengths" for so long and it is traditional. But in other racing sports, they have ALWAYS used time and not distance to specify the winning margin. You can go back and look at the results of a track meet from 1924, and while the times won't be all that accurate because they were taken by hand, the basic principle that you time each runner-- the winner won in 10.6, second place 10.8, third place 10.9-- had already been established.

At this point, it's just silly to say how many "lengths" a horse won by. We have accurate timing (except at Gulfstream LOL!). It should just be "Arrogate 1:59.23 Gun Runner 1:59.73 Cupid 2:00.02" etc. And then we can say "Arrogate won by half a second".