Is there any particular reason, maybe from ancient chariot racing etc, that most track events whether running, horses or motorsports seem to progress in an anticlockwise direction. Is it anything to do with being right handed, do lefthanders prefer a clockwise circuit. If so, it’s one heck of a disadvantage for them… From my own experience of grass tracking, I certainly preferred to lay my bike down to the left, and I much preferred the left hand corners to the right… even on roller skates.

I'll need to check on this but people walking, lost or without landmarks, go in circles and I think that it may be counter clockwise. Also, most right handed people draw circles anti-clockwise.

UK racecourses exist in both forms - eg Wincanton is right handed, Wolverhampton is left handed. Some horses perform better on right handed tracks, others do better on left handers. Irrespective of course orientation, horses carrying my money perform uniformly badly.

I’ve never put a penny on a horse except when ordered to in the works Grand National do… but it raises the question now… are horses left and right handed?

I'm right handed, and draw a circle clockwise.

Do you stir things clockwise or anti? Or polish? I do both anti as well as when drawing circles. In fact almost anything I do which requires circular hand motions, I do anticlockwise.

This discusses your question as far as athletics go
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19047586

Quote :

horses carrying my money perform uniformly badly.

I think this goes against any theory of statistics, Ian. Unless, of course, like my father, you only bet on complete outsiders (though even those come home winners occasionally, as did he).

Trotting courses here go either way, though most go anti-clockwise. I found a thesis about injuries to thoroughbred (PDF file so I couldn't copy it), and it said horses were more likely to be injured on the lead leg and that varied with the way the course went; racing clockwise they began with the right leg, anticlockwise the lead leg was the left. I don't know if that's the same for trotting and pacing horses though, where the action is different.

I draw circles anticlockwise.

Gilgamesh of Uruk wrote:

UK racecourses exist in both forms - eg Wincanton is right handed, Wolverhampton is left handed. Some horses perform better on right handed tracks, others do better on left handers. Irrespective of course orientation, horses carrying my money perform uniformly badly.

Does it depend on the county as to which direction the horses run or is it merely a track preference? In Australia it depends on what state you are in, for example Victorian tracks all run anti-clockwise and NSW tracks all run clockwise. My memory is a bit dodgy so it could be the other way around, but it does depend on the State.

Don't think the county matters - I suspect it's more a matter of how you can fit the course into the landscape to give a satisfactory view into the "country" part of the course and get the start / finish lines for the preferred distances all to suit the grandstand.

There was an interesting discussion today on BBC Radio 4`s Beyond Belief program:

Sacred Directions

In some cultures clockwise is akin to sunwise.

Vizzer,


thanks for this radio debate. Although I think I understood it all, for me Neerlandophone, it is easier to have subtitles in English...and written is even more easier as one can return if you don't quite understand it quickly enough.

But it was a interesting debate, taking into account all main religions and even the pagans.

Up to now I thought that the direction of the church had to do with the direction of Jerusalem as for the Jews. I do know about the Muslims praying in the direction of Mecca. Are the mosks also directed to Mecca? (And during my research I saw now that "churches" was the plural of "church" instead of "churchs" )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientation_of_churches

If I understood it well the cardinal directions and the turning clockwise have a lot to do with the turning of the sun, which is specific to "our" earth...and again if I understood it well there is a relationship between paganism and religion? Interesting also was on the last minutes: the turning counter clockwise in the Japanese Shintoism, but coming to the same as the other clockwise ones, instead of following the circle of life of the sun, they go to the sun, the life, to honour her (haar)(In Dutch it is a she)...

Kind  regards, Paul.

PaulRyckier wrote:

Vizzer,


thanks for this radio debate. Although I think I understood it all, for me Neerlandophone, it is easier to have subtitles in English...and written is even more easier as one can return if you don't quite understand it quickly enough.

...
Up to now I thought that the direction of the church had to do with the direction of Jerusalem as for the Jews. I do know about the Muslims praying in the direction of Mecca. Are the mosks also directed to Mecca? (And during my research I saw now that "churches" was the plural of "church" instead of "churchs" )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientation_of_churches

...

Kind  regards, Paul.

Almost all Danish country parish churches were built in an east-west direction with the bell-tower - if any such existed - to the west. Most of these stone churches were originally built between 1150-1300.

Traditionally burials were with the head looking to the west, 'so you could see Christ rise or come from the east.'

Again traditional country parish churches are surrounded by a cemetary or in Danish a 'churchyard.'

Kind regards from me, too.

Thank you for the comment Nielsen.

I think on the first sight from what I read that it is the Roman way, pre-Christian. But I wll do some research tomorrow to confirm it or not.

Kind regards from Paul.

Nielsen wrote:

PaulRyckier wrote:

Vizzer,


thanks for this radio debate. Although I think I understood it all, for me Neerlandophone, it is easier to have subtitles in English...and written is even more easier as one can return if you don't quite understand it quickly enough.

...
Up to now I thought that the direction of the church had to do with the direction of Jerusalem as for the Jews. I do know about the Muslims praying in the direction of Mecca. Are the mosks also directed to Mecca? (And during my research I saw now that "churches" was the plural of "church" instead of "churchs" )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientation_of_churches

...

Kind  regards, Paul.

Almost all Danish country parish churches were built in an east-west direction with the bell-tower - if any such existed - to the west. Most of these stone churches were originally built between 1150-1300.

Traditionally burials were with the head looking to the west, 'so you could see Christ rise or come from the east.'

Again traditional country parish churches are surrounded by a cemetary or in Danish a 'churchyard.'

Kind regards from me, too.

Nielsen,

I don't know for the "churchyards"
(the same in Dutch "kerkhof", German: Friedhof (peace yard), but also Kirchhof). We seem to be the real Germanic language! people, those English ones are only half half with their French words as "cimetière". (I know it has all to do with the Roman invasion and William The Conqueror ) (have to do research about the cemetaries for Belgium)
but for the churches I think they are directed to the East, with the Christians also looking to the East, and the entrance in the West. But I got entangled in the position of the altar and the position of the priest to the altar..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altar

As I was in my childhood, as a Roman-Catholic in such a college, nearly each day in a church and a mass...I remember: the priest for the  highlights of the mass towards the altar and with his back to the worshippers, and for the rest towards the public and thus with his back to the altar...
I don't know about your childhood Nielsen, but in Denmark with the altar in the West is the priest then the whole time with his face to the public and behind the altar...?

And that  West model seems to be the ancient Roman fashion...even up to the 11th century in Europe?
From the wiki:
"The old Roman custom of having the altar at the west end and the entrance at the east was sometimes followed as late as the 11th century even in areas of northern Europe under Frankish rule, as seen in Petershausen (Constance), Bamberg Cathedral, Augsburg Cathedral, Regensburg Cathedral, and Hildesheim Cathedral.^[10]"


Kind regards from your friend Paul.