Can horse races end in ties? Has one of the triple crown races ever been that close?
It would seem so Ky. Cup Classic ends in dead heat .
The Carter Handicap at Aqueduct Racetrack in NY, ended in a a triple dead-heat in 1944. It may have been raced as a Grade-2, but is now a Grade-1 race.
I’m not sure, but the Sunday Silence/Easy Goer 1989 Preakness race at Pimlico Racetrack was pretty close (by a nose, with Sunday Silence the winner). I think this is a question for Ruffian.
Well damn. Let’s see if this works any better:
triple dead-heat. I tried to go straight to the jpg and that didn’t work. It’s the first “postcard.” And it lists the winners, which I neglected to do: Brownie, Bossuet, and Wait A Minute.
None of the Triple Crown races has ever finished in a dead heat as far as I can see. And they’ve been racing those for a long time.
However, dead heats do occur. With the advent of the photo finish, they are less common, but I’ve seen finishes were you just can’t tell who crossed the line first. It happens in track also and in swimming. There was a tie in the 1984 Olympics, although the two swimmers had different times if you stretched it out to 1/1000 of a second.
I believe that at the time, swimming officials didn’t believe that 1/1000 of a second was too short for clocks to register accurately.
Has horse racing ever embraced the tenth of a second?
Your “dead heat” went to a dead link for me, but it looks like you’ve got the clear winner for non-clear winners.
I just thought of an invention to solve that problem:
A series of cameras, each a little farther from the finish line.
It would then become a tenth-inning, overtime, or “sudden death”-type match, with a clear winner.
It would look like the famous “stop motion” photos of **Eadweard Muybridge Galloping Horse 1878 **
Sigh. Oh, I guess that’s another “problem” that doesn’t need solving, but that seems to my speciality.
So, the overtime winner is the horse that has the most acceleration (or perhaps least deceleration) at the end?
I found this on the National Thoroughbred Racing Association Website. http://www.ntraracing.com
It was under “25 Reasons Why Horse Racing is Fun”
There’s the short answer. Yes, “ties” (called dead heats, as others have pointed out) do happen in horse racing. A triple dead heat (involving three horses) has happened just twice in American racing history, IIRC; the one in 1944 and another fairly recently. Dead heats do happen for other placings, of course–they can and have occurred for any position in the race. They are extremely uncommon in major events, but not unheard of.
Dead heats aren’t just a matter of a guessestimation (well, at least not anymore). “Photo finish” is just that–there is a special camera situated right on the wire (finish line) which is activated by something–a horse, we hope-- crossing its line. The photo actually has the finish line highlighted (I’d say “drawn in,” but “draw” is an inaccurate description) so that the winner can be determined down to the nearest nostril. In dead heats–and I have seen several photos of them–the resulting image shows just that: two horses whose noses touched the line at the exact same time. It’s amazing to look at. Racing stewards usually use magnification in very close races to try to determine a winner (or placing); but sometimes, they simply cannot determine a winner. One horse certainly was a small fraction of an inch ahead of the other, but current technology cannot differentiate that.
As far as Triple Crown events go, there has never been a dead heat for any of the top paying positions (1st-4th), although there have certainly been a fair share of close victories. Grindstone won the 1998 Kentucky Derby by a nose; Sunday Silence won the '89 Preakness by a nose; Affirmed won the 1978 Belmont (and Triple Crown) by a nose over Alydar. Close finishes aren’t uncommon in Triple Crown events, and in fact, the last five years have had some quite exciting finishes.
Bob, horse racing is regularly timed now to not just the tenth, but the hundredth of a second, although sometimes fractions and final times are referred to in fifths for sake of continuity (to compare with previous times of the race, such as track records, etc.). This upgrade began about ten years ago; I think Belmont Park in New York was the first to implement it.
logamanth, “tenth innings/overtime” are not an option with racehorses, if I’m understanding your suggestion correctly. These are extremely valuable and delicate animals handled with a velvet glove. Running slightly longer and/or harder stands too great a chance of injuring or exhausting the animals, postponing future races (one race every three weeks is considered a grueling schedule) and compromising future success. Plus, it makes timing the race impossible. Track records would become too incongruous–a mile and an eighth…and twenty feet?
Consider also that this year’s Kentucky Derby winner, Fusaichi Pegasus was just sold to a breeding farm for an estimated $60 million, and hasn’t run since the Preakness three months ago. More than likely, he will never run again–he is simply too valuable to risk injury on the track (they’re saying his initial stud fee will be around $200,000–which is INSANE for a freshman stud, no matter who he is!). It was for similar reasons that Secretariat was retired at the end of his three-year-old campaign.
I’ll try and find some links with photo finish and/or dead heat photos and post them in here.
It’s been too many years since I’ve picked up a Daily Racing Form, but they used to occassionally publish the 1944 photo of the triple dead heat, along with a list of all known triple dead heats — about 8 to 10, I believe.
They also mentioned in one of their recurring question and answer columns that dead heats have actually increased since the photo finish began to be used.
Well, boy was I wrong. There have certainly been more than two triple dead heats, especially in harness racing (trotters and pacers, pulling sulkies, as opposed to being ridden). From what I uncovered, there have been 19 such TDHs recorded in that particular form of the sport.
An official photo of Wild Rush and Silver Charm in their dead-heat win of the 1998 Kentucky Cup Classic can be seen here: http://horseracing.about.com/sports/horseracing/library/graphics/kycup98/photofin.jpg
Photo of the 1944 triple dead heat in the Carter Handicap (colorized for E-postcard use): http://horseracing.about.com/library/postcard/deadheat.jpg
I haven’t yet found the statistic that shows the recorded number of triple dead heats on thoroughbred horse racing, but I’ll keep a-lookin’. 
So do they ever declare a dead heat for some sort of procedural reason? Say if one horse runs two horses off the track or some such thing?
On December 7, 1997, the 4th race at Hollywood Park resulted in a triple dead heat. The report said it was the first of its kind for a win since on at Belmont Park in 1991. The American Racing Manual has a list of the triple dead heats since 1940.
The first race that day had only entrant and it won in a walkover.
They don’t take bets in that situation.
The one at Belmont Park was on October 7, 1991.
Newspaper accounts say that there is no definitive list of triple dead heats, but the one at the Hollywood Park was believed to be the twentieth since 1940. For thoroughbreds.
I have no idea if they are more common in quarter horse or harness racing.
Bob, when a horse interferes with another horse(s) in a race, he/she is disqualified and placed behind the horse interfered with. Gate Dancer gained the dubious honor of being the only horse ever disqualified in the Kentucky Derby for interference in the 1984 running–although he wasn’t the winner, he was disqualified from fourth and placed fifth for frequently bumping Fali Time.
This can be a matter of frequently bumping a rival, which wears the other horse out, to a jockey hitting another horse with his whip (the debate circles endlessly as to whether Angel Cordero hit the filly Genuine Risk on the head in the 1980 Preakness), to a horse crossing the path of another, and so on. In the 1987 Derby, a tiring Bet Twice was in the lead but began to weave back and forth across the track (common for a tired horse to do); in so doing, he cut right in front of the upcoming Alysheba, who clipped heels with Bet Twice, tripped to his knees, and still managed to regain his composure and pass Bet Twice for the win. However, it is certain that Bet Twice would have been disqualified had Alysheba not passed him in the lane, regardless.
An added note: any time a horse falls, whether or not due to injury, there is an automatic steward’s inquiry to determine whether the injury and/or fall was due to interference. It’s a matter of protocol, even in some of the more obvious cases where the horse had simply broken down.
If a horse were to run another horse off the track, such as in you conjectured, the horse would not only be disqualified, but likely banned from the track if it was due to erratic behavior (Gate Dancer was a real fruit loop and was nearly banned himself). The jockey would also likely be suspended for rough riding.
Overtime or not, this is not at all an infrequent ending to a horse race. Horses have different running styles; some “speed” horses like to go straight to the front and control the pace of the race. Other “come from behind” horses typically have little natural early speed and prefer to bide their time in the back, then catch up on the tiring leaders. Silky Sullivan was infamous for his out-of-the-parking-lot last minute rushes.
Speed horse advantage: control the pace. If these guys get “loose”–uncontested–on the lead, they can slow things down, saving their energy, and pulling the rug out from those who like to come from the back of the pack. Disadvantage: if there’s more than one horse in a race with this running style, they can hook up and burn each other out before the half mile pole–leaving the come-from-behinders ready to reap the benefits.
Mix up the two racing styles, and you can often get a race where the winner was tiring and the second place horse launching like a banshee. I don’t know how banshees launch, but you get the idea. Acceleration and deceleration simply aren’t as important in this sport as who crosses the finish line first.
Absolutely correct…just to add to it, in smaller fields they change betting requirements too. For example, four horses in the race: no show (third place) betting. Three: no place (second place) betting. Tracks like the odds longer than 50/50, for good reason$! 
I was asking to see if there was something like a “technical dead heat” in horse racing, similar to a technical draw in boxing. (Like when a fighter has to retire because of an inadvertant foul by his opponent.)
Simple answer: No.
That makes sense. I suppose that if all hell breaks loose during a race, it is much simpler to declare it “no race” and give all the bettors back their money rather than having two winners and all sorts of payoff problems.