Distances

Irish Stamp

Irish Stamp

Forum Moderator
Joined
Mar 21, 2004
Messages
8,584
Location
Brighton
From the BHA site:


ANNOUNCEMENT: Change to Official Distances
From Boxing Day 2010 we will be ceasing to use a 'Distance' as an official term when calculating the distances that horses have been beaten. This will mean that when a horse is beaten by greater than thirty lengths the old term of 'Distance' will not be applied. For the purposes of greater accuracy the Judging department will now announce the actual number of lengths that a horse is beaten, when giving out the distances as part of the result.

This would mean that, for example, in the case of when Kauto Star won last year's King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day, that the distance calculated would have been 36 lengths, rather than him winning by a 'Distance'.

To enable this change to take place, the Photo-finish software which calculates distances based on the elapsed time between each horse multiplied by the Lengths per Second Scale in use, dependant on the ground conditions, has had to be extended beyond thirty lengths. We will now calculate distances up to 99 lengths, after which they will appear as 99+ which is how they currently are reported in the Press for their cumulative distances.

This change is in line with Racing for Change and will give the Public and those that bet on distances more accurate information.



Certainly something for those who play the distance spreads and the totals to consider. Often wondered why for some races I'd see an official distance of "distance" and others would be "52 lengths" for example.
 
Why doesn't RfC get with the people, and change the lot?

Thus, a Nose to Short Head would be a 'canny bastid'; Half a Length would be a 'goddamitall'; 1-5 lengths would be a "sheeeeyit", 10 lengths a "forcrissakesman" and anything longer than that would be "futhermuckinballscrap".
 
Surely this is a positive step. It was laughable last year when Phil Smith was making reference to Kauto Star winning by 36l and making his assessments of the rating on that basis when the official formbook was suggesting he won by an entirely different margin.
 
And what is a half a length or a length? Interestingly, during our backstage tours at Brighton with racegoers, it depends on the individual horse's body length, according to the judge. So 10 lengths depends on whose body length? If you take this ab reductio ad absurdum, then 10 lengths of DENMAN is not 10 lengths of OPENIDE for formbook purposes, is it?

Maybe what's needed is for a standard measure to be signed to the furlong pole from the finish. Put it in metres (not Imperial measures) and at the same time change all the courses to metric so that there's none of this half metric/half Imperial dicking about we have at present. Then you will have a photo finish which will show the standard amount of metres, of parts thereof, by which the winner has won.

We're still working with centuries' old standards against the evolution of sectional times and a photo-finish camera. Chuck out the medieval race distances based on a serf's ploughing of his little piece, chuck out the Imperial measures of stones, make the whole damn thing metric and be done with it once and for all.
 
You can't, according to the judge Felix Wheeler, calculate a time for anything from a nose to a length. Those are shown by lines on the photo-finish copy and, if he's in any doubt about the nose, he gets out an old magnifying glass to split the pixels. And as a length 'depends on the length of a horse's body' - something which seems to not have been standardised - then what distance is the length on which you base the times for 3, 7, 20 lengths?
 
krizon said:
And as a length 'depends on the length of a horse's body' - something which seems to not have been standardised - then what distance is the length on which you base the times for 3, 7, 20 lengths?
Click to expand...

As Martin says, it's not a measure of distance beaten, but of time beaten expressed as a distance. The distances given by the judge by eye are frequently not the same as those appearing in the official formbook, I'm told. So it simply doesn't matter how long a horse is.
 
Irish Stamp - Racing Post have been converting timed distances between horses beaten wide margins and converting them to actual distance beaten in their results for a long time. If you go through the results sections of the beaten horses in staying chases in some old copies you'll see it's not uncommon to see distances returned as 37l and 43 l etc.

Krizon - The BHA have for as long as I've been interesting in racing been returning distances beaten as a convertion of time between horses rather than length, so it really doesn't matter whether a length of Denman is bigger than a length of Openide. This scale is sliding dependent on the official going, with distances of 6l per second for Flat racing on good going or firmer, 5.5l per second for going ranging from good to soft (good in places) to good to soft (soft in places) and 5l per second for soft (good to soft in places) and softer.
 
Bar the Bull said:
This is a bold move, which will hopefully secure horse racing in the hearts and minds of the British public.
Click to expand...

:lol: Good one, Bar.

What a soulless and inept shower of fuckwits this lot are.

Not only do we get the kind of strategic insight that my 7yo daughter could come up with, it's coupled with the sanitisation of one of the sport's most endearing features; it's arcane and obscure phraseology.

I look forward to "odds" being rebranded as "probability outcomes" in the near future.

Twats.
 
:lol::lol: at Grassy!

DJ - I know, honestly, I do, about the length/time continuum, but why do judges still insist on saying it's 'the length of a horse' - and, on another forum, far, far away and in another galaxy, we were seriously asked if that included the tail? :lol:
 
Maybe suggesting a horse won by 0.2 seconds rather than a length is just too revolutionary?

Anyway, if this thread is going to descend into a rather predictable slagging off of RFC, I'll leave others to get on with it.
 
davidjohnson said:
Maybe suggesting a horse won by 0.2 seconds rather than a length is just too revolutionary?

Anyway, if this thread is going to descend into a rather predictable slagging off of RFC, I'll leave others to get on with it.
Click to expand...

I've no issue whatsoever with the way "lengths" are calculated, dj.

What I do have an issue with is RFC's continuing and unnecessary tampering with one of the things that make racing (and us, by proxy, as it's followers) unique. Such decisions anger me because, imo, the prevailing RFC strategy - that of the need to 'modernise' - is fundamentally flawed anyway.

RFC have no real clue as to what's racing's "problems" are, which rather constrains their ability to develop a coherent strategy to tackle them. The only contribution that RFC has made is a series of crack-papering measures that achieved bugger-all in practical terms. Where is the vision??
 
I'm probably carrying over views from a different board about another eminently sensible proposal i.e trainers names rather than initials that drew a similar response.
 
If I thought that RfC was worth a quarter of a million quid, or was doing its work with volunteers, I'd perhaps feel a little tiny bit positive about it. As it is, it's come at a time when many breeders and trainers have been forced out of the business by the recession, when owners are winning less than those racing their animals at Borrowdale (Zimbabwe, ffs), let alone other developing countries (or even those financially knackered), when courses are building multi-million ££ grandstands and hotels (and other follies) to attract non-existent hospitality guests, where the BHA has failed pathetically to induce a change of position by the Levy or to involve the government in the issue of offshore bookmakers and the exchanges, and where it's coolly announced it will hike its charges to owners by some 22.5% ("most owners can afford this" from its top suits) starting January 1st.

Hmm, let me see... slagging off RfC? No, just thinking it's a singularly unnecessary exercise at this time.
 
Last edited:
IIRC, a few years back the way of measuring winning/beaten distances was changed and based on the number of strides (i.e. lengths) per second with 0.20 seconds equalling 1l on the Flat and 0.25 seconds per length for NH races, due to the general difference in ground conditions and pace at the finish of a race under each different code.

It was a few years back, but I think I have remembered the gist of it correctly.
 
Last edited:
I know the topic's about distances, but it's also about RfC, and my comment about it spending a quarter-million on various feeble exercises appears to be very wide of the mark. Was at a luncheon at Lingfield today and its General Manager told me no, no way - it's actually spending MILLIONS.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top