Del Mar 'dead heat'

[plasticman]

Controversy surrounding a race recently that wasn\'t a dead heat but the judges said it was. Supposedly the photo the judges have is of much higher resolution than what is shown to the public, this still doesn\'t explain why the line which is superimposed into the photo appears to overlap the outside runners nose. It seems pretty obvious to me that there\'s some part of the nose under the line while that\'s not true for the inside runner.

[Boscar Obarra]

I dont quite buy the resolution story, and if true, why dont they post it in all its glory.

[jerry]

Is this the race you\'re referring to?

https://www.dmtc.com/data/racing/photo-finishes/550.jpg

[Boscar Obarra]

I had already looked at that.

 There seems to be some artifacting around the lower horses upper head. No problem with that

  But I see , on the top horse, the \'background\' showing through, where on the bottom horse, you don\'t have that.

  If its a question of resolution, lets see the original, else , the only claim they have is that its so close we called it a dead heat out of fairness.

[metroj]

Hoof of the inside horse catches the line the same time that the nose of the outside horse does.

[Boscar Obarra]

A triple dead heat?

[jerry]

The California rule:

\"Duties of Placing Judges.

\"In placing the horses at the finish, the position of the horses noses only shall be considered and not any other part of the body.\"

There\'s a big blog about the incident here.

http://www.barntowire.com/smf/index.php?PHPSESSID=ljlgd8ght5dqj1aqlgp2066j15&topic=76621.0

[metroj]

Thanks for the info, and the link.  Always assumed it was any part of the horse\'s body.

[Boscar Obarra]

Tell you what I really think. This is something that happens once in 50,000 races, if that. So both horses got paid. It\'s not like they put up the WRONG winner.

 And the margin was what,a half inch?

 Do horseplayers really have so little to worry about  ,that they have time to anguish over this?