Equibase, the racing industry’s official data supplier, has entered final race times into its database for the first three race cards at Kentucky Downs run last week that conflict with nearly all of the times registered by the track’s timing vendor, officials for the company confirmed on Tuesday.
Equibase entered the final times into its database after doing an independent review of the races at Kentucky Downs on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday following the reception of internal alerts that the track’s posted times were out of the normal range, according to Kyle McDoniel, the chief executive of Equibase.
At the same time, other independent observers and figure makers were expressing concerns beginning with the track’s opening-day card on Thursday that the posted times were erroneous, sometimes by more than 1 1/2 seconds. The problems persisted throughout the weekend, according to the figure makers.
“Anytime we have someone tell us they are seeing a problem, even if it’s not us, or when we start getting the [internal] alerts that something is out of bounds, we have our quality control people take a look at it, even if we’re not the vendor,” said McDoniel.
The figure makers and McDoniel both said that final times generated by the Kentucky Downs timing system were in some instances slower than the times calculated by Equibase and in some instances faster.
For the meet that started on Thursday, Kentucky Downs began using a French company, McLloyd, to generate fractional and final times for its races. The times are recorded using GPS systems and sensors placed in the horses’ saddlecloths. McLloyd operates timing systems at a number of tracks in Europe and Asia.
Prior to this year’s meet, Kentucky Downs used a similar system owned and operated by Equibase, which is itself a partnership between a racetrack trade association, Thoroughbred Racing Associations, and The Jockey Club. Kentucky Downs is a member of the TRA.
Ted Nicholson, the vice president of racing at Kentucky Downs, said on Tuesday that the number of tasks facing the track’s management to put on the three cards of racing had drawn focus away from the timing system, at least for the first weekend of racing. Kentucky Downs, which is located in Franklin, Ky., on the border of Kentucky and Tennessee, gives away the highest purses in the country over just seven days of live racing.ken
Nicholson also said that the logistics of preparing the Saturday card for a two-hour national live broadcast on NBC TV had drawn resources away from a real-time focus on the new timing system. He said he hoped to have discussions with officials from McLloyd’s on Wednesday morning to review the company’s data.
“We still need to get an understanding of what is going on,” Nicholson said.
Equibase’s own GPS timing system, called GMAX, has encountered difficulties in timing the races at Kentucky Downs in the past. The GPS systems used by both Equibase and McLloyd’s have replaced systems that used beams or hand-timing to generate fractional or final times, with the promise of delivering more detailed racing data than the older systems.
Kentucky Downs is unique on the U.S. racing landscape because of its unusual track shape, which includes several significant changes in elevation, and because the track only races on turf. The shape of the track, its undulations, and the movement of inner rails to ensure good footing complicate the timing of races at the track.
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Equibase has augmented its GMAX system with several other technologies that are designed to generate more accurate timing data, including a product using so-called “computer vision” to combine GPS data with video data.
“I’ve got a lot of empathy for anyone trying to time U.S. racing,” McDoniel said, noting the U.S. racing industry’s intense focus on data. “There are a lot of variances and factors at play. At the end of the day we want to make sure the best information is out there.”
The Equibase data is used by most publishers of handicapping products, including Daily Racing Form, to generate accurate racing data for bettors. Final times are also key to the calculation of performance figures. Daily Racing Form is the exclusive provider of one form of performance figures, the Beyer Speed Figure.
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