SPEED HANDICAPPING

Speed handicapping can be deceptively simple. No matter the form of the numbers, the process involves two fundamental steps:
1. Adjusting actual times to reflect track-surface speed on a particular day,
and
2. Converting the adjusted times to numbers that have been logically arranged on a speed chart.

In the standard lexicon of speed handicapping, numbers found on the speed charts are referred to colloquially as figures. Speed figures indicate how fast horses have run in relation to some norm, such as the figures earned by the other horses in the field or the typical figures earned by winners of today's kind of race at today's distance. Examine the six-furlong final times below and determine which of the horses has run faster.

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