DEAD HEATS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIX, Issue 1093, 23 March 1911, Page 7

DEAD HEATS.

When interviewed a few days ago in Melbourne, the well-known judge, Mr F. R. Row, who, perhaps, has judged more races than any other official, was asked to express his opinion on dead heats, more especitlly as it had been said that he gave more of those decisions than any other judge, and Mr Row replied: — “They were quite right. Then I had to decide four times as many events as any other judge. The first fifteen months at the ponies I had to do 1000 races, and as they were nerly all from three and a half to five furlongs, and the form of every pony known to an ounce, you can quite imagine dead heats would be frequent. Still in 20 00 races they only averaged 3 per cent., which I consider very small. You see dead heats in Caulfield and Williamstown Cups, the Champion and Maribyrnong Plate. Two took place in one afternoon at Perth a month ago. I dislike dead heats very much; they cause delay on the course, and give another race to decide. My first dead heat was an expensive one. At a country meeting the judge, not being too sure of himself, asked me in the box to assist him in a pony race. It was a great finish. I said a fair dead heat. He thought sg, too, and up went the numbejrs. Before the run-off the owner of one of the ponies asked me to put £lOO on for him. Knowing him well, and not going into the box again. I did so. He came up smiling, and said the other pony is not trying; they are backing ours; it is picking up money. A book-maker got to the other in the meantime, and livened him up, and he won easily. I haven’t picked up my £lOO yet. A sporting paper here once wrote that there was no such thing as a dead heat —it was simply that the eye was not powerful enough to discern a slight margin of difference between two horses passing the post, But why two objects could not pass a given line dead level I couldn’t understand. I proved later on that the writer was not correct. I undertook the judging for the big pedestrian carnival given by Mr Wren at the exhibition. The £5OO sprint was run in heats, and judged by electricity. The first man to breast the tape severed the current, and the light flared above him. I had to judge the events as well, in case anything went wrong with the apparatus. In one event I called a dead heat between three. I looked up, and the three lights were burning.”