DEAD HEAT
This occurs when, even with the aid of the photo finish, a judge is unable to declare an outright winner of a race. Before the advent of the photo finish there was frequent uproar when the judge declared a dead heat, when it seemed plain to everyone else that there had been a definite winner.
In many cases, the angle of the actual finishing line is very difficult to assess correctly on some racecourses and the uproar was not justified, although in other instances it was.
Owners, trainers, to say nothing of an army of outraged punters would have been correct in their assessment that they have been robbed by the judge’s eyesight, or lack of it, because in a dead heat the owners of horse’s concerned share the prize money and bets on the winners are settled to a reduced state.
The first dead heat decided by a photo finish occurred at Doncaster in October, 1947 the horses being Phantom Bridge and Resistance. Sprint handicaps tend to result in more dead seats than other events when several horses may be within inches of winning, in what is sometimes called a blanket finish.
DISTANCE
1.The distance is a point 240yds from the winning post. There is no mark on the racecourse to indicate it, but it is frequently referred to in form summaries and the formbook e.g. lead at the distance soon went clear. However, courses are marked out along the strait with prominent signs indicating how many furlongs from the winning post. The distance is thus 20yds before the one furlong marker is reached.
2.Horses are sometimes judged (rarely on the flat, but quite often at jumps meetings to have won by a distance. This, technically, is also 240yds but usually means that the winner and runner up are separated by such a margin that the judge cannot make an accurate estimation by eye.
3.The distance of a race. No race on the flat can be less than five furlongs. There is no limit on how long a flat race can be but in practice there and not many races beyond two miles. The longest race in the calendar is the Queen Alexander stakes at Royal Ascot over 2