Churchill 6f not 6f
 

Monday I was over to my daughters house and she has The Dish Network . Included in her plan is the Horse Racing Network and TVG . I was bouncing between the two when a report on the up and coming Breeders Cup at Churchill came on . So I stuck around to hear what they had to say. Everthing was ho-hum until they started talking about 6f sprint races. They were interviewing a trainer (can't remember which one) and he was talking about the layout for 6f at Churchill. It seems that the start pole for a 6f race is at the point where the first turn meets the backstretch. So what they do is position the start gate back in a chute (way back). This trainer went on to say that a 6f race on the dirt at Churchill is more like 6f and fifty yards. I found that hard to grasp until they went on to show pictures of the pole location in relation to the start gate and even an overhead shot. How are we to deal with this difference in distance? I have noticed in the past that at certain tracks , in sprints , the home horses will have slower times than the shippers for the same distance and usually don't figure to be in the race. But they whip the shippers on a regular basis. This would explain some of my loses at Churchill in the past. Where an inch can be the difference between cashing a ticket or not , what do you think 50 yards will do for you ? It would be very interesting to find out what the real distances are at all the tracks not just the advertized distance.

I had heard that the run up for 6 furlong races at CD is longer than average. Did the trainer say that the actual timed distance is longer than 6 furlongs?

He was implied it but came short of saying it out and out. But he was really ticked about the long run-up.

Hi guys,

That real long runup might explain the very very fast first fractions there at THAT distance.

Seems to be like 3-4 ticks faster that reality when comparing early horses who run there ( in form) then go elsewhere.

Rich:)

we can even see the difference here between the 1c at the 6 and 6.5f distances at CD

this is an in form consistent running horse ( checking the speed ratings on the 3 races.

Yet look at the big difference at 1c

good thread Ramon!
Rich

http://www.bloodhorse.com/talkinhorses/JA030106.asp
 

I thought I had read somewhere else that it was about 150 ft vs 60-90 feet for a typical run-up. I'll look a little more. This doesn't make sense to me. If a chute is being used, the turn is taken out of the equation completely and there's no reason why the gate couldn't be moved closer to the pole.


Quoted from article:

Lexington, KY
What is the run-up distance for six furlong races at Churchill, and is there some reason why it is significantly different (as in longer, which results in quicker first quarters) than at other tracks?

Asher:
The placement of the starting gate on our one-mile track for six-furlong races provides a longer than usual run-up to the actual start of the timing of those races at Churchill Downs. Placing the gate at the actual six-furlong point would place it in the middle of the first turn gap, which would raise a safety concern. Because of the track configuration, a six-furlong race at Churchill Downs is actually closer to six and-a-quarter furlongs because of that running start -- and that explains the quick first quarter clockings.

What can we learn from this
 

Observations: This horse is improving as closing fractions between lines 1 and 3 indicate. But for me there is a potential disconnect. In line 2 the first fraction is 5 tix faster, the 2nd fraction is 4 tix faster, but the closing fraction of 24.4 would not normally be the expected fraction after running so fast, so early. If you lose 2 units of energy for every 1 unit of greater exertion, wouldn't you expect the line 2 closing fraction to be some where in the order of about 26.2, using the line 3 fractions as a baseline?

Old Sartin raw closing time of 24.4 was "86" for line 2, "91" for line 1 and "88" for line 3, if memory serves me correctly.

So what can we learn from this? Perhaps you could ask The Hat for his interpretation. Jim stated a few posts back that he was a little leery of using CD first fraction times at 6f, but in the same post he allowed that the final time was okay to use. Obviously the horse can run fast, but the final time has to have some functional relationship to the first call time. Do we just conclude that with a normal 50-60 ft run up vs. 150 ft +/- that the first call would be 2-4 tix slower?

The horse did what the horse did (at least final time-wise), but if he ran a 21.3 in a normal run up instead of 22.2 or 22.3, he couldn't/shouldn't run a final time in the 109's, so shouldn't we discount the final time of this horse at 6f for Match Up purposes? or simply note the anomaly and use the 6.5f races?

THanks,