"track record"

[George Thompson]

> According to the OED, "track record" derives from horse racing.
> Whether horse racing qualifies as a "sport" is open to question:  The
> activity is covered in the "sports" section of newspapers, but I
> always wonder who is the athlete--the horse or the rider or the owner.

The horses are often referred to as athletes by turf broadcasters, anyway.  I maybe don't see it in written racing commentary.  The jockeys are certainly athletes.

I recall many years ago a column by Red Smith in which he grumbled at the misuse of the expression "track record", which, in horse racing, doesn't mean a horse's record as a racer, but the fastest time ever run on a specific track for a specific distance: as, the track record at Saratoga for a mile and 3/8 on dirt is . . .

"Wine Police (7th, $7.10) jumped out to the lead, shook off Mythical Truth and favored Soldat turning for home, and widened to a 7 3/4-length debut triumph in 1:03.36, just missing J Be K's 5 1/2-furlong track record of 1:03.13 set in 2007."  (from a recent horse-racing blog by Dave Liftin, who also writes for the Daily Racing Form; found by a Google search for "track record" saratoga)

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

----- Original Message -----
From: Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
Date: Thursday, November 18, 2010 9:54 am
Subject: Re: "track record"
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU

> According to the OED, "track record" derives from horse racing.
> Whether horse racing qualifies as a "sport" is open to question:  The
> activity is covered in the "sports" section of newspapers, but I
> always wonder who is the athlete--the horse or the rider or the owner.
>  The question is perhaps even more troubling as regards auto racing.
>
> But I wonder whether modern users of the phrase "track record," if
> they ever stopped to wonder, would think of it in terms of horse
> racing or auto racing or human foot racing.  (Of course, the thing
> about cliches is that their users seldom do think about them.)
>
> --Charlie
>
> ________________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of
> Jonathan Lighter [wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM]
> Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2010 9:31 AM
>
> Ubiquitous indeed.  I can't remember the last time a TV news
> individual said
> "record" when he could say 'track record."
>
> Sports-related metaphors are more frequent than ever. Cf. last week's
> post
> about "pregame speculation" before the G-20 summit.
>
> JL
>
> On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 9:07 AM, Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
> >
> > The figurative use of the phrase "track record" is certainly not new
> (the
> > OED shows it from 1965).  Nor would it be noteworthy, except that it
> is
> > becoming increasing ubiquitous, or so it seems to me--even in cases
> where
> > simply "record" would suffice.
> >
> > --Charlie
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org