Ok, now I've heard 8, 8.5, 9, and 10 feet are a length. What do chartwriters use as the standard?

8'
Actually it depends. If they need a horse thats like a length or a 1/2 length or head/neck... it's just by eye. If they are doing a horse thats way off the pace some of them use the rail which is 8feet.

Formula Call1 to Call2
(((Call2distance-Call1Distance)*660feet)+LengthsBehindCall1*8-LengthsBehindCall2*8)) / (Call2time-Call1time)


Formula Call to finish
((Finishdistance-Call1Distance)*660feet+LengthsBehindCall1*8)/((Finaltime-Call1time)+0.18seconds*BeatenLenghtsFinish)

^^ you get velocity in feet per second
if you want it time in Seconds then you divide feet/velocity (#Furlongs*660)/VelocityAnswer

8feet Fontan safety rail
.18seconds photo finish tech.

I think the studies that showed it between 8.5 to 9 feet were done by the New Bolton Center, but they are old. Perhaps race horses are getting shorter.

So if a horse finished 10 lengths behind the winner on the chart, he was actually 1.8 seconds behind? I think I get all screwed up because only the winner's time is reported in thoroughbred races, where harness and greyhounds report times for all finishers. In greyhound racing a length is always reported as .07 seconds, so it's not so much a measure of distance as it is time. If thoroughbred racing uses the universal reported of lengths behind winner as .18 sec/length, then that would be a good piece of information for me to know.

Sorry for totally derailing this thread.

that is what i was told. They don't use visual lengths at the finish, only at the calls. 0.18 is what at least some of the companies use. Yea, it would be nice to just get have trakus in the saddle and have a time and distance for every furlong.

Without something like Trakus it's all a guessing game as far as the distance between horses. I'd like to see Trakus implemented at all tracks and hopefully one day that will be the case.

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