Understanding Horse Lengths & Time Comparisons in Horse Racing

Question
this is scary..my name is Jim Johnson...i used to go to the races with my dad (we went to Penn National) I started going again -brings back good memories. My dad said to figure a horse length as about 1/5 second. When I compare time run at a mile 70 yds versus a mile 40 yds  how much time do I add to the mile and 40 time to make a fair comparison ? thanks for your time, Jim Johnson
the PA variety

Answer
Hi Jim:

Scary is right - although our name is pretty common. There are 23 Jim Johnson's in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where I live.  It's amazing that there is not more confusion in getting the correct one.

Thanks for your question.  Your dad was correct - we use the standard one horse length as about 1/5 second - therefore for a race of 1 mile 40 yards versus 1 mile 70 yards, you need to come up with a figure for 30 yards - 30 yards is 90 feet - use the 1 length as 6 feet - divide 90 by 6 and you come up with 15 lengths - 15 lengths times 1/5 second is about 3 seconds.  A good time for a horse to run 1 mile 40 yards is 1 minute 44 seconds.  Therefore that same horse that ran 1 mile 40 yards in about 1 minute 44 seconds should be able to run 1 mile and 70 yards in about 1 minute 47 seconds.

You were well on your way to answering your own question - all you lacked was the math.

Thanks again for your question and I hope the information helps.  If it does, please take the time to give me a rating.

Jim