Results Charts are difficult to use because the horse’s progress is measured by its lead over the horse behind it. To determine where it is in the race, you must add up the “leads” of all the horses in front of it. And, except for the finish, the horses usually are changing positions during the race, so you need to skip around among the lines, adding up different leads at the different calls.

Past Performance lines are worse because they are often misleading. A PP line may show “Our Guy” running second, 4 lengths back at the top of the stretch and finishing second, 2 lengths back, implying that it gained 2 lengths during the stretch. While in fact, “No Finish,” the horse it was behind at the top of the stretch, faltered badly and finished eighth, and “SuperCloser,” a horse which was two lengths behind Our Guy going into the stretch, caught and passed it to win by two. So, instead of gaining 2 lengths, it actually lost 4!

It’s even difficult to see everything while watching a race live, unless you are an incredibly gifted note taker. Too much is going on while horses are bunching up and going around turns. Videotape is probably the best solution, but may not be available when you actually need to review a race unless you are doing your own taping. And, even with videotape, there are times when the distance and angle of the shot prevents you from seeing what’s really happening.

The PC Race Viewer is our solution to this problem. With this program you enter data from Results Charts, which are generally available for free, and create a viewing file which you can save and view anytime you like. The viewing is by animation, as shown below.

The program creates a small horse figure for each horse in the race, then interpolates its position, every 1/10 seconds, and moves it accordingly as time passes, also posting the time calls as it goes. It’s just like watching the race in real time, except that the horses run in a straight line. You can see which horses are faltering, which are coming on strong.

Viewing the race can not only help you look for strong moves, You can also look at “matchup” races where horses in today’s race ran against each other before. (It’s easy to find those “matchup” races if you use our Highlight Notes program).

If you are a serious handicapper, the PC Race Viewer is a bargain at only $49.95!