That Woodbine course gives up some very fast numbers on dry days. The Atto Mile went in 1.32.3 the previous year. Fully 2.2 seconds faster than Leroid ran it.

It may be that after all these years that I dont fully understand "About Distances". (I'm not joking) It may be that they don't use the electronic timer but rather hand time when the starting position is inside of the Furlong pole. That would explain the Chart for the 6th where interior calls were omitted.

However, I've never seen About distances shorter than the Furlong pole for all the races I've watched from the track and paid attention to the start. I've also rarely seen final "About" times faster than "Exact" times.

At any rate the question I asked was straightforward enough. Did the ground crew note the About Distance inside of the furlong pole? We don't have to speculate unless TGraph is holding onto the information for proprietary reasons.

Would you agree with me that if the About distance is at least 9 poles upon a trend that tends to indicate the Turf course increasing in speed then Leroids race is not all that spectacular.


Michael D. Wrote:
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> the winner of the 6th on otto day (a decent stakes
> mare, not great) once ran "about" 9f in 1:43 and
> change on the WO course. the time of the 6th on
> otto day also came back quick for that course.
> looks like those races were a tad short of 9f.