[RAMON201]

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.