Furlong Converter
A furlong is one eighth of a mile: 220 yards, 660 feet or 201.168 meters, exactly. The Kentucky Derby is 10 furlongs, a mile and a quarter. Type a distance in any unit below and the others follow, or turn a final time into the pace a horse ran.
Convert a distance
Type in any box and the rest follow. A furlong is an eighth of a mile: 220 yards, 660 feet or 201.168 meters.
Fractions as a program prints them: 1 1/4, 1 3/16, 5/8.
Time to speed
Hundredths (1:59.40) or fifths (1:59 2/5). The distance follows the converter.
- Seconds a furlong
- Seconds a quarter mile
- Kilometers an hour
- In fifths of a second
- Total seconds
How long is a furlong?
The furlong is defined from the mile and the yard. NIST Handbook 44, the United States' reference tables for weights and measures, gives 1 furlong as 10 chains, 660 feet and 201.168 meters, each exactly, and 8 furlongs make a mile. The meter figure is exact because the yard has been defined since 1959 as exactly 0.9144 meters, and a furlong is 220 of them.
| Furlongs | Miles | Yards | Meters |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1/8 | 220 | 201.17 |
| 4 | 1/2 | 880 | 804.67 |
| 6 | 3/4 | 1,320 | 1,207.01 |
| 8 | 1 | 1,760 | 1,609.34 |
| 9 | 1 1/8 | 1,980 | 1,810.51 |
| 9.5 | 1 3/16 | 2,090 | 1,911.10 |
| 10 | 1 1/4 | 2,200 | 2,011.68 |
| 12 | 1 1/2 | 2,640 | 2,414.02 |
Why does racing still measure in furlongs?
The word is older than the sport. It comes from the Old English furlang, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary: "originally the length of a furrow in a common field," from furh, furrow, and lang, long. The fields went; the unit stayed in racing, where it is still in daily use. American racing writes sprints in furlongs (six furlongs is the common sprint) and longer races in miles and fractions of a mile, and a program will give the same race either way, so 1 1/16 miles and 8 1/2 furlongs are one distance.
How long are the big races?
| Race | Distance (furlongs) | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Kentucky Derby | 1 1/4 miles (10) | kentuckyderby.com |
| Kentucky Oaks | 1 1/8 miles (9) | kentuckyderby.com |
| Preakness Stakes | 1 3/16 miles (9.5) | America's Best Racing |
| Breeders' Cup Classic | 1 1/4 miles (10) | America's Best Racing |
The Belmont Stakes returns to a rebuilt Belmont Park on 5 June 2027, according to NYRA, which had not yet stated the distance for that running when this page was written, so it is left out until it does. How long is the Kentucky Derby goes into the Derby's distance.
How fast is a racehorse?
The time panel divides the distance by the final time. Secretariat's Kentucky Derby record, 1:59.40 in 1973 over a mile and a quarter, still stands: 119.4 seconds for 10 furlongs is 11.94 seconds a furlong, an average of 37.69 miles an hour. Golden Tempo won the 2026 Derby in 2:02.27, which is 12.23 seconds a furlong and 36.80 miles an hour. Both are averages; no horse runs a race at one speed.
Seconds a furlong is the easiest way to feel the gap between two times. At 12 seconds a furlong a horse runs a mile in 1:36 and a mile and a quarter in 2:00 flat, and every fifth of a second slower per furlong adds two full seconds over the Derby's ten furlongs. The 2.87 seconds between Secretariat and Golden Tempo comes to less than three tenths of a second a furlong.
The converter also works the other way for races run in meters, as most racing outside North America is. A 2,000 meter race is 9.94 furlongs, about 13 yards short of a mile and a quarter, and 1,200 meters is 5.97 furlongs, close to the six of an American sprint.
Times appear in two forms. A time in hundredths, like 1:59.40, is how modern charts print it; a time written in fifths of a second, like 1:59 2/5, is the same thing in the older notation, and the calculator takes either. Seconds a furlong is the figure handicappers compare when they talk about pace, the subject of pace handicapping, and the raw material that speed figures adjust for the track and the day (what a Beyer Speed Figure is).
Sources: NIST Handbook 44, Appendix C (units); kentuckyderby.com, Churchill Downs Inc. and America's Best Racing as linked for each race and time.