It's about time to consider reforming the way our races are timed

[cmorioles]

Originally Posted by Calzone Lord

It's one of the longest for sure!

Trinniberg and Secret Circle hooked up through a 20 4/5 opening quarter there in the BC Juvie Sprint. They have like 200ft of run-up sometimes at that distance.

Here are the fractions for Black Caviar in a six furlong race over in Australia:

Black Caviar: 13.75, 10.65, 10.30, 10.27, 10.65, 11.75 Final time of 1:07.36

The first quarter was just 24.40 seconds, obviously because they time races from a dead stand-still start and not because 'paces are slow over there'

Obviously, the reason why you have horses running furlongs in 9 3/5 seconds at 2yo sales is because they get huge run-up and they've accelerated to max speed by the time they hit the pole that starts timing.

Still, I would say the difference between a stand-still start and 10ft of run-up is probably a lot greater than 50ft of run-up vs 120ft.

If we started timing races the sensible and logical way in this country ... you would see half the grandstand befuddled by the fractions.

You should get Charles Carrol's Handicapping Speed. It is great when it comes to talking about how long it takes horses to get up to speed, how long they can hold it, etc.