Friends and family know that I am a big fan of horseracing. Let's face it, I grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, and spent considerable time in my formative years at Keeneland Racecourse. The first Saturday in May is, and always will be, a holiday on my calendar.
Now that I live in Maryland, I try to incorporate the 2nd leg of the Triple Crown into my math classroom. Horseracing here is just not as prominent as it is in Kentucky, so I am on a mission to introduce a new generation to this event. This is one of my favorite units, and since I have some students three years in a row, I have to mix it up a bit each year.
Most of my unit focuses on probability. Sure, I could have the kids spinning spinners, flipping coins, or other activies (which we do also), but there's nothing like the excitement of watching a 2 minute race hoping that the name you drew out of a hat is the winner!
What is handicapping, really, but studying lists of data and making predictions on possible outcomes? The students receive a list of the horses in the race, the morning line odds, purse money won, and post position. We usually start with purse money, since students can usually see the connection, the better horse usually has won the most money. Students list the horses by purse money from greatest to least.
Next,students are given a graph or data table that shows how often, historically, a horse wins from a given post position. Using this data, student rank the horses based on their post position.
Students have often heard about odds, but sometimes they don't understand the concept. Using the morning line odds, we create a fraction, and find the percent chance that the experts think that horse has of winning. For example, 3-1 odds would mean that the horse would have 3 chances of losing for each chance of winning. The fraction would be the chances of winning divided by the total chances, which is 1/4, or 25%. Students find percentages, and then rank the horses based on odds. I also explain that morning line odds are what the experts think. I often get questions on betting, which I do answer, but point out that betting is only for adults.
After students have ranked the horses in these different ways, then they get a chance to predict the order of finish for all the horses in the race, in whichever way they choose. I usually offer $100 if anyone gets all the horses listed in the correct order of finish, which usually excites the students beyond belief! Until we do the math! (I have yet had to pay the $100, by the way).
We then work on how to calculate how many different combinations there are for the 1st place finisher, the 1st and 2nd place finishers (exacta), the first 3 places (trifecta), and for all the horses in the race.
Some other options for this unit include measuring in furlongs, rate/time/distance problems, and stride length. This year, I plan on doing stride length. Man-o-War had a stride length of 28 feet, Secretariat's stride was 24 feet. One activity is for students to measure the stride length and mark it with tape. Then students can walk the distance to find out how many strides they take to walk 28 feet. An alternative would be to measure their own stride. The Preakness is 1 3/16 of a mile, so I have students convert the distance to feet, and then determine how many strides each horse would need to complete the race. They can also do this calculation based on their stride length.
For more information on horse-related activities in the Math classroom, check out http://www.ket.org/scalecity/kentuckyhorsepark.html
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