First Photo Finish

You'd be surprised to learn that the world's first photo finish image, captured by photographer Ernest Marks in 1881 New Jersey, didn't survive — making the oldest known photo finish a race image from 1890. Marks' photos were delivered within minutes of each race, a revolutionary concept for the time. Thread-triggered systems later replaced his method, though they were unreliable and only recorded first-place finishes. There's plenty more fascinating history ahead if you keep going.

Key Takeaways

• Ernest Marks pioneered photo finish photography in 1881 New Jersey, delivering race images to officials within minutes of each event.
• The original 1881 photo finish image was lost, making an 1890 photograph by John C. Hemment the oldest surviving example.
• Hemment's system used a thread-triggered camera, capturing 136 images per second but only recording first-place finishes.
• Lorenzo del Riccio's 1937 slit camera revolutionized photo finishes by synchronizing continuous film movement with competitor velocity for reliable results.
• Del Riccio's technology debuted at Del Mar Turf Club in 1937, replacing subjective steward votes with objective photographic evidence nationwide.

The 1881 Photo Finish That Vanished and the Image That Survived

When we think of photo finishes in horse racing, the story begins in 1881 New Jersey, where photographer Ernest Marks served as the official photographer for the Plainfield Racing Association. He captured horses crossing the finish line and delivered positive photographs within minutes of each race. It was a revolutionary concept that changed how racing officials determined winners.

Despite these erratic beginnings of photo finish technology, Marks' achievement earned its place in history. Unfortunately, his original image didn't survive.

The oldest surviving photo finish dates to June 25, 1890, when photographer John C. Hemment documented the famous match race between Salvator and Tenny. Hemment had mastered action photography at a time when most subjects remained completely still, making his achievement all the more remarkable. Before such photography existed, determining race winners was often ambiguous and subject to dispute among officials and spectators alike. Pioneering work in motion photography had already been accomplished by Eadweard Muybridge, whose stop-action series photography was granted a patent in 1897 and predated the commercial films of the 1890s by at least 16 years.

How a Thread and a Slit Produced the First Reliable Finish-Line Photo

Before the slit camera transformed finish-line photography, John Charles Hemment's 1890 thread-triggered system represented racing's first serious attempt at objective documentation. You'd find horses breaking a thin thread at the finish line, activating a shutter capturing 136 images per second. Despite that impressive speed, thread failures and instantaneous inadequacies plagued the system consistently.

The technology only documented first-place finishes, offering no mechanism for recording multiple horses' relative positions. For nearly five decades, these limitations frustrated racing officials seeking objective results.

Lorenzo del Riccio's 1937 slit camera solved what thread-triggered systems couldn't. His design eliminated thread dependency entirely, synchronizing continuous film movement with competitor velocity. A narrow four-inch vertical slit aligned precisely with the finish line, producing sequential temporal records that finally delivered the reliability Hemment's pioneering system never could. One significant drawback of these early film-based systems was that chemical film development had to be completed before officials could verify any results.

Single-exposure cameras had previously failed to capture the decisive finish-line moment, making the transition to continuous strip photography an essential leap forward for the sport. The strip camera's ability to record variety of times at a fixed location, rather than freezing a single instant, was what ultimately made objective placements possible.

Why Del Mar 1937 Transformed Photo Finish History Forever

On July 3, 1937, Del Mar Turf Club opened its gates to 15,000 fans, and Bing Crosby—serving as the track's president—personally greeted patrons as they arrived. He'd co-founded the track with Pat O'Brien and enlisted rising Hollywood profiles like Oliver Hardy and Gary Cooper to back the venture financially. That star power drove intense media coverage impact, putting Del Mar's debut under a national spotlight.

That same opening day, Lorenzo Del Riccio's revolutionary circular flow camera captured its first finish-line images, replacing stewards' subjective votes with objective photographic records. The combination proved transformative—celebrity attention kept audiences watching closely, while the camera guaranteed every close finish was decided fairly. Tracks nationwide soon adopted Del Riccio's patented technology, cementing 1937 Del Mar as a permanent turning point in racing history. Before this innovation, race outcomes relied on three stewards positioned at the finish line who would simply look at one another and vote on which horse had won.

Del Mar's summer meet quickly attracted champions and legends of the sport, with iconic horses like Seabiscuit among the notable horses racing at the seaside track in its earliest years.

The Photo Finish Flaw That Still Identified the Correct Winner

Though early photo finish cameras had serious flaws, they still managed to identify winners correctly more often than not. You might wonder how that's possible given their visual accuracy limitations, but expert interpretation made the difference. Trained stewards analyzed each image carefully, compensating for length distortions caused by film speed mismatches.

The 1890 Hemment images proved this point clearly. Despite blurring and imprecise timing, they provided an objective confirmation process that reduced disputes stewards previously settled through guesswork alone. Even flawed photographic evidence outperformed pure human observation during chaotic finishes.

The order of finishers remained identifiable even when images weren't perfect. These partial successes weren't failures — they were foundational stepping stones that pushed engineers toward developing the far more precise systems you rely on today. The groundwork laid by these early methods eventually led to Lorenzo del Riccio's strip camera in 1937, which focused solely on the finishing line and could determine results in under a minute.

How Pearl's Mirror System Turned Photo Finish Into a Global Standard

When Bertram Pearl refined Del Riccio's 1937 strip camera in 1948, he didn't just improve an existing tool — he engineered a system precise enough to become a worldwide standard. His mirror accuracy guaranteed both sides of each horse appeared in perfect vertical alignment, eliminating errors caused by off-angle positioning. You can think of it as a built-in proof that the camera captured exactly what happened at the finish line.

He also added neon-pulse technology for precise timing, creating stripes on the film at 1/100th-second intervals. Together, these innovations replaced the judge's eye entirely. By the late 1940s, tracks globally had adopted Pearl's system, and it became the direct foundation for today's digital slit-scan technology — transforming racing's fairness, betting integrity, and dispute resolution permanently. The precision mirrors at the heart of Pearl's system were part of a long tradition, as mirror making secrets had once been so fiercely protected that revealing them was punishable by death.