Translating lengths into time

[philcski]

Originally Posted by ateamstupid

Here's my issue with your logic in coming up with internal fractions: If I'm interpreting it correctly, then that assumes that every horse is running at the winner's speed. Just because the winner is running at a rate of 6.47 lengths/second doesn't mean that a runner in second place making up five lengths will do so at that same rate. He probably is running slower, so that's where it gets tricky, ya' smell me?

Correct, but not enough to make enough of a difference. Let's say you have a sprint where they went :45 to the half and we looked at 3 horses:
* The leader ran 6.90 lengths/second to that point
* the horse in 2nd by 5 lengths ran 6.78 lengths/second to that point
* the horse in 8th by 12 lengths ran 6.63 lengths/second to that point

So using that information, a fair "one-size-fits-all" lengths beaten adjustment for the pace call would be 6.75 lengths/second.