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How much is a 'length'? More Secretariat & question

Posted By: Chuck Bower
Date: Saturday, 16 April 2011, at 3:03 p.m.

In Response To: ...but these words come pretty close (Jake Jacobs)

I had a difficult time finding the conversion unit, but did see (online) that Daily Racing Form supposedly says 1 length = 8 feet.

While digging around and playing with numbers regarding Secretariat's Belmont win, I discovered that Blood Horse magazine rated Secretariat #2 among best horses of the 20th Century, behind ManO'War. So I dug into that horse's performance history, which was pretty impressive, but...

(WARNING: there's always a cloud of doubt when comparing athletes from different eras, and that is true for horse racing as well. I continue.)

ManO'War won the 1920 Belmont Stakes when it was only 1 3/8 mile (now 1 1/2 mile). Secretariat's win was in a field of 4, but apparently ManO'War was in a field of only 2! That 1920 win was in a World Record time of 2 min, 14 2/5 seconds. I couldn't find the 1/4 mile splits (maybe they didn't record them back then?).

I did find Secretariat's 1/4 mile splits so I used his mean speed for the last 1/4 mile to interpolate where he was on the track at 2 min 14 2/5 seconds of his race (i.e. when ManO'War crossed the finish line in 1920). OK, I'm going to give the answer in a post below, but here's the question:

How far ahead of ManO'War was Secretariat in this mythical 1 3/8 mile race when ManO'War crossed the finish line?

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