Florida Derby Time Adjusted

After reviewing the race, Equibase has adjusted the final time for Saturday's GI Florida Derby, won by Forte (Violence). The original time of 1:48.51 has been changed to 1:49.37.

In a statement released Sunday by Equibase, the company said that the finish line beam may have been tripped before the horses reached the finish line.

Prior to Equibase recognizing the mistake, the error was caught by the Beyer speed figure team. Initially, Forte was credited with a 98 Beyer figure. That number was lowered to a 95.

“The time is almost a full second wrong and I have no idea why,” said Beyer associate Randy Moss.

After doing their own review of the race, the Beyer team came up with a final time of 1:49.39. Moss said questions were raised about the Equibase time because it had the field covering the final eighth of a mile in 12:16 seconds, which seemed unrealistically fast. That, Moss said, drew the attention of Craig Milkowski from TimeformUS. He reached out to Moss and both went over the race. With the recalculated final time, Forte's last furlong went in 13.02. Equibase has also adjusted the time for the final furlong to 13:02.

“We timed it four different times, four different ways and got within three-one hundredths of a second every time,” Moss said.

Moss added that on first inspection it appeared that Forte's figure was significantly higher.

“Initially, we looked at the track variant and had the figure coming up as 104,” Moss said. “Andy (Beyer) and Mark (Hopkins) asked me what did I think. I said that the fig is the fig. They said there was no way those horse who finished behind Forte could have all run that fast. So they decided to make it a 98. As it turns out, they were right because the time was wrong.”