They wouldn't have been running at a sprint. This was a harness track, similar to Scarborough Downs, Plainridge, or the former Foxboro Raceway, featuring standardbred horses pulling drivers in sulkies (little two-wheeled carriages), and they have to maintain a specified gait (pace or trot). It wasn't thoroughbred/flat racing with jockeys riding astride like the Kentucky Derby. From
this book which is apparently out of copyright:
Another shaped track is in the form of a kite. This track was first brought before the public in 1887 by William B. Fasig, secretary of the Cleveland Driving Park Company, an acknowledged authority on the subject. A kite track, as its name indicate,s consists of two stretches of one third of a mile each with a connecting curve of one third of a mile. The starting and finishing point is at the apex of the kite where the two stretches meet. At this point are the judges and the grand stands. The advantage of this track is that the horses have only to go round one curv,e instead of two, as on the elliptical track, and are therefore able to trot a mile in about two seconds faster time. No tracks of this pattern were built till 1890 and the majority of the champion records made in 1891 were made on the kite shaped tracks at Stockton Cal. and Independence La.
I saw another diagram somewhere where the starting gate (I assume a standing-start) was at the start of one leg of the big loop, and the finish line was similarly positioned at the base of the other leg of the loop. The upshot is that the small loop was essentially just a slowing-down area, and the racers weren't expected to navigate the crossover during the race itself.
And that's about as far off-topic as I think this thread can get
"...And then I thought, every time some company creates a more powerful locomotive does Superman become more powerful as well or is he stuck at 1938 locomotive power levels?" - A friend of mine elsewhere
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