asfufh - You are correct. Finishing places are determined by the order of the horses when each hits the wire not the order they are in when the winner crosses the line. Equibase knows the time for each horse but does not publish it - they use it to calculate lengths beaten. What I want to know is how to take lengths beaten and go back to the actual time.

I contacted Equibase and they said there is no easy way to calculate the non-winner's times. I take this to mean that the time/length they use varies based on distance or may even be more complicated by using the running speed of the horses to get a decent approximation of their time/length.

Jerry - I'm curious if you heard anything different. The way they are calculating this would be important to making figures because if they are using a constant time/length (even if it's changed for each distance) it would be misleading if non-winning horses were running faster or slower than that constant. My guess is that they are adjusting the time/length based on the speed the race is run in (e.g. t/l would be different for a 1:33 mile vs a 1:38 mile) but I just wanted to find out for certain.