America's Best Racing. The Jockey Club.

Time is money, right?  Nowhere in the world of horse racing is time as important to the betting public as it is in North America. 

Sectional timing, which shows the timed splits for leaders as they pass certain distance benchmarks during the course of a race, has been ever-present on this continent for decades.  The same cannot be said for the rest of the world, however. The vast majority of racing jurisdictions in Europe, for example, lack sectional times.  Even finding the final times for some races, and comparing them to par times for course condition and distance, can be a monumental, if not impossible task. 

Trakus is the official sectional timer for some of the world’s richest races in some exotic racing destinations, including the Dubai World Cup at Meydan and Singapore International Cup at that island nation’s Kranji Racecourse, plus Turkey’s Veliefendi Racecourse.  The system has also been used as the official timer in races at some distances in North America.  Trakus differs from traditional timing systems, which capture the just leader’s split, in that our system records times for all horses over all distances within a race. 

The 2012 Del Mar meeting opens Wednesday, beginning the 75^th anniversary of racing at the legendary facility.  To begin a comparative study that we will maintain over the course of the 2012 season at Del Mar, we provide a graph below to benchmark race-ending performances as rated by “come-home” par times. These times listed below are the average final two-furlong (1/4 mile) and one-furlong (1/8 mile) times for every horse we tracked last season at Del Mar. Next to each of those times are the average closing times for the fastest 10 percent of horses at that distance, intended to segment the swiftest closers.

The winner isn’t always the fastest horse at the finish, but obviously, the fastest over the course of the entire race.  For example, the data from races at 5.5 furlongs on Polytrack was well-spread over various finishing results.  Of the fastest ten percent of horses in the final quarter-mile of 5.5-furlong races from the 2011 meet, 15 were winners while 13 finished outside the top three.  For the final furlong (1/8th) stats, 13 of the fastest ten percent were winners, while 14 finished worse than third.  The horse with the second-fastest final two furlongs of the meet in races at 5.5 furlongs finished ninth beaten almost seven lengths, but made-up almost 14 lengths in that period.

Still, one should always consider individual race paces and scenarios within the context of that particular race before initiating immediate comparisons. Course conditions are subject to change, especially over the course of a meet (although Del Mar is particularly exempt from weather changes).  Seeing a claiming horse run 1:10 for six furlongs and a stakes horse record the same time a few days later, does not suggest the horses are equal in ability. The chances are significantly greater that if the stakes horse had been running against the claimer in the same race, the quality of the stakes horse winner would have trounced the claimer. 

These statistics are not intended to serve as an elixir for finding winners, but rather, to judge select performances, and as always, gain even greater perspective on each race.  Each horse’s individual sectional times are available from the Trakus T-Charts at the Del Mar website, updated just minutes after each race.  Summer racing with a Pacific Ocean backdrop is upon us – enjoy!