Watch a race in 3D
This is the race itself, replayed in 3D. You open it everywhere a race appears: from its card through the Watch the race button, from My last races, or from a list of results.
And it is not just a handsome object: it is the only place where you see where a race was won and lost. A finishing order tells you who won, the viewer tells you why.
Before, during, after
A race becomes viewable as soon as entries are closed, without waiting for it to be run. If you open the viewer before the hour, it announces the start in so many seconds and waits with you. You then attend the race at the moment it unfolds, which is rather more pleasant than reading the result the next day.
The finish table is only displayed at the end, never before. You can therefore watch without knowing anything, including a race run long ago.
A race stays viewable for sixty days. After that it is purged and the viewer answers that it is no longer available: if a race matters to you, watch it again within two months.
Standard 3D or lightweight 3D
At the first opening, the game asks you which to use. The lightweight 3D works on just about any machine; the standard 3D calls for a computer capable of calculating real models in motion. If in doubt, begin with the lightweight one: all you lose are the camera angles, the side camera remaining the only one available.
Tick Remember my choice and the question does not come back. You can change it at any time in My account then General options, on the Race viewer line: Always ask, Always use the 3D viewer, or Always use the lightweight 3D viewer.
The information bar
At the bottom of the image, it permanently displays the distance covered, the time, the name of the race and that of the horse being followed. Its corner button shrinks or enlarges it: on a small screen, or with the help panel wide open, that is what gives room back to the picture.
The controls read in rows.
- Whom to follow: a button switches between Follow the leader and Follow the selected horse. The first to see the race, the second to see yours.
- Five cameras: from the side, from above, jockey, at the finish, and movable. The camera from above is the most legible for understanding a placing; the jockey's, the most impressive. A slider sets the zoom.
- The display: going full screen or back to a window, showing or hiding the list of horses, and switching the sounds off or back on. If you have turned the sounds off in your account options, that last button does not appear.
- Playback: play and pause, a slider to choose the moment of the race, and two buttons to go forward or back one frame at a time.
Those last three controls are the most useful for analysis: you pause at the place that counts, then move forward frame by frame to see exactly what happened.
Choosing the horse to follow
The Show the list of horses button brings up the runners, number and name. Click a name in that list and everything is set on it: the camera follows it, the bar displays its name, and a detail panel gives its description, its owner, its trainer, its jockey and its breeder.
It really does go through the list: clicking the horse in the picture does not select it.
Above all, that panel gives its split times every 100 metres. It is the most instructive reading in the viewer, and the equivalent in a race of what the Duration column gives in a test: at constant effort the intervals stay regular, and the one that suddenly lengthens marks the moment the horse gave up.
One detail you would not guess: the Split times button copies all those times into the clipboard, one line per distance, distance and time separated by a tab. One paste into a spreadsheet, and you have what you need to compare two races or follow a horse over a season.
You need width for that. The detail panel, and therefore the split times, only appear if the viewer has at least 750 pixels of width. Below that, the bar shrinks by itself and gives up the stopwatch, the race's name, following the leader, four of the five cameras and that panel. On a phone, turn the device to landscape or go full screen: the full bar comes back.
Fall and stride break
A horse may not finish. Over hurdles it can fall; in trot it can break into a stride break. In both cases a mark appears on it in the picture, and the finish table carries the word in place of the time.
The finish
At the end of the race, the table is displayed: place, number, horse, owner, jockey and time. It is the same finishing order as the one on the race's card, but you arrive at it after having seen how it came about.
What to watch
Get into the habit of watching your races again, and above all the bad ones. A horse that leads from end to end and cracks in the last few metres, another that comes back without ever having been asked: you do not read that in a result, and yet it is what says what to correct next time.
Jockey — My races explains what to draw from it for the next ride, and Prepare a race details how to build it. To measure a horse without risking anything, see Test a horse.