Hey DrugS...

[cmorioles]

Originally Posted by PatCummings

Trakus is programmed to know how long the run-up is and eliminate that data from the timing. That being said, there are still, and always will be differences in the timings.

Watching tracks time races is like making hot dogs (or for us guys from Philly...scrapple) - you REALLY REALLY don't want to see the process, but you absolutely salivate over the end result.

I know of one track where the beams don't work at all, and someone actually just hits a button when they think the horses pass a pole, and I wouldn't be surprised, at all, if that happens more than one place.

From an overall perspective, North Americans are once again the crazy ones, as no one else in the rest of the world uses run-ups. The timing starts when the gates open everywhere else, and they run truer distances.

Anyone can see that runup is not included in Trakus. I'm just saying it would be better to include it. Runups are really an unfortunate part of US racing as they distort the times. It isn't a huge deal, but it does have an effect. For the record though, distances in Europe are often a joke, so I wouldn't say they run truer distances. They are just wrong for different reasons not related to run up.

Some of these differences are just unexplainable, other than to say our timing systems suck. Gulfstream timing has been a running joke for years. Just look at some of the races from yesterday comparing Trakus to Equibase:

R-2, T: 1:35.15, E: 1:34.27
R-3, T: 1:43.86, E: 1:43.08
R-6, T: 1:40.39, E: 1:39.78

You have differences equating to about 4 and 5 lengths there alone. Is Gulfstream really advertising "Our system sucks, but we're putting it in the PPs anyway"? Why not just get rid of the bad timer and report Trakus times? Doesn't the chart man just report what is on the infield timer? How hard it is to switch?