I worked in racing for 17 years, and this link [www.aro.co.za] to the photo is exactly what the photo finish people look at after every race. And it's the PHOTO FINISH employee who for years was responsible for naming the lengths that separated each horse in every race every day at every track.

In the old days (meaning up through the year 2000 or 2001) the "film strip" was black & white and took about 4 minutes to develop. It was then "splashed down" as a projected image onto a white surface into the placing judges booth so they could determine the order of finish, but the actual call of lengths was determined by the photo finish employee, whom then gave the order of finish and "lengths beaten" to the Racing Form, Horseman's Bookeeper, and others.

For anyone that ever counted on accuracy of lengths behind has to keep in mind this was in fact a subjective call by the Employee of the Photo Company (and there were a lot of them) that the contract with the track.

What's shocking to me is that evidently, if I'm reading this string right, Jerry had no idea exactly how such things as margins were actually computed until he called Equibase (which has only been around for 12 years or less). Seems to me accuracy in information like that would have been a high priority for those making figures.

M3




M3