TROTTING TRACKS. 203 



side horse be "foreshortened" were the judges located at 

 the outside of the track? If a judge cannot look down 

 over two wires (and there should be two, one hung about 

 two feet, and exactly plumb under other) and tell which 

 horse reaches it first, he has missed his calling. These 

 close finishes are unfortunately so rare that the people 

 are not educated to the fact that no one standing on a 

 level with the horses, even though directly under the wire, 

 can tell to an absolute certainty the winner, and no one 

 stationed at the slightest angle to the wire, no matter 

 where he may stand or sit, can decide a close finish or 

 time a horse to a certainty. The man who stands over 

 the wire in the judges' stand is the only one who can 

 decide that, and to him the decision is an easy matter, 

 not the wonderful feat we hear about; and the closer the 

 horses are to him the easier the decision. The pole horse 

 is the one usually chosen to score by, and it is evident 

 he can be better protected when near the starter. 



Possibly the instantaneous photographic process 

 might be used to advantage, but I doubt if it would 

 change five decisions in ten years. Dead heats are very 

 infrequent, and generally when they are decided dead, 

 the decision is based on some resting or gaining break 

 of the leading horse, in which case the camera would 

 prove nothing. I firmly believe that any man with two 

 good eyes — or one good one, for that matter — can look 

 down over two wires and tell which horse gets there first 

 as well as an instantaneous photograph can. Besides, we 

 would be spared the infliction of those awful pictures of 

 a horse, man and sulky in the most terrible, struggling 

 contortions, suspended in mid-air by an invisible thread. 

 Prince Wilkes would commit suicide were he shown his 

 photograph in one of his famous finishes. 



