American Successes

If it's the case that US 2yos are more forward than UK ones, does it follow that their 3yos should be more forward in the first half of the season and could it lead to US 3yos coming over for some of the 'weaker' races in future?
 
Fourstars Allstar, trained in New York by Irishman Leo O'Brien (brother of Michael O'Brien), won the Irish 2000 Gns in 1991 but there have been no challengers since.
 
Warbler said:
You've got a car with a 1 litre engine (he used the example of his Nissan Micra - draw your own conclusions) and say it weighs a 2000Ibs laden with passengers etc and has a topspeed of 70mph under these conditions. You then take all your passengers out and strip it bare of anything that adds ballast to it. Hypothetically you strip it down to 500Ibs, effectively reducing the mass by 3 fold through weight reduction. It wouldn't improve on its topspeed and suddenly run at 210 mph.
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But you would accelerate quicker and could travel at 70mph for longer.
 
Just to throw a spanner in the works, it would be logical that the fastest ever times (given a huge number of races historically), would be posted by horses carrying relatively low weights, arguments about handicap marks notwithstanding, but the five furlong world record of 53.89 secs set by Raffingora which stood for 13 years was achieved while carrying ten stone. It would have to be argued that he could hardly have gone much faster whatever weight he carried.
 
Ah, but was downhill at Epsom - does extra mass make a horse faster when going downhill? :D

(Sorry, I'm just taking the piss :p)
 
The Raffingora time is very dubious..was hand timed and I read a story somewhere that it should be ignored

I meant run the mile at a different time..or he would be knackered Warbler:p

I'm pretty sure I can run faster without carrying any additional weights.

What you say about not much DO..is exactly the point though

not much difference is all it takes to slow a horse down by 1 length..1 length is 9ft near as..over a mile 1 length represents 0.17% of the total distance..that is the little we are talking about..by adding just 2lb in weight you are adding a bigger % of the horses weight than the 0.17% of distance reduced by ..so its fair to say that you would expect the very small slow down to be related to the relatively very small amount of weight added.

I'm not really in any camp here..weight does make a difference ..we cannot quantify it exactly..but it has to make a difference

if weight does slow a horse..just that little bit..then taking it off will do the opposite..even though its just a tiny amount
 
rorydelargy said:
Just to throw a spanner in the works, it would be logical that the fastest ever times (given a huge number of races historically), would be posted by horses carrying relatively low weights, arguments about handicap marks notwithstanding, but the five furlong world record of 53.89 secs set by Raffingora which stood for 13 years was achieved while carrying ten stone. It would have to be argued that he could hardly have gone much faster whatever weight he carried.
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just realised..it was Indigenous's record i were thinking about..that still is the record 53.6 from 1960
 
EC1 said:
just realised..it was Indigenous's record i were thinking about..that still is the record 53.6 from 1960
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That's right EC1, which is why it's generally ignored; I believe Spark Chief would have beaten both times if Willie Carson could have ridden him right out. As it was, his 53.7 sec time is almost certainly faster than that of Indigenous anyway. Interestingly, the previous record was also set over the same course and distance way back in 1933 by Devineress.
 
Is it still the world record? I seem to remember hearing that something at Santa Anita had beaten it a few years back. Could have been 6f though.
 
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