Key Factors in Race Horse Selection part two

Following on from part one and one area that we can focus on with regards understanding racehorses and Horse race betting is to make an analogy with athletics for a minute. Anyone who watches or has watched athletics will be aware that most athletes who compete in the running events only do so at selected distances. While an athlete may be very strong at 100m and 200m, they will struggle at 400m.

There is often overlap with regards distances and some specialist 200m runners have converted successfully to 400m and the great Michael Johnson is an example as is Usain Bolt at 100m and 200m. But these are exceptional athletes and certainly not the norm. This is why any athlete who achieves highly prominent results at two different distances really does stand apart from the crowd.

What this shows is the difficulty in switching distances for many athletes but the factors that govern an athletes optimal distance are usually to do with areas like stamina and physical strength. These endurance and strength ratios often govern ideal distances and is why sprint athletes are very physically powerful but yet they would make for poor distance runners.

This trade off is obvious but what may not be so obvious is the dividing line between what are correct and incorrect distances. Take a 400m specialist for example, they may lack the power to be successful at 200m and also the endurance at 800m. So what I am trying to say here is that this analogy with athletics and horse racing is very strong. Horses are bred and trained for specific distances but often trainers and owners will place horses into races over distances that they have never run at before.

Usually the distance isn’t much different from what the horse has run over in the past but it doesn’t need to be for performances to start to suffer. Of course the Horse Racing trainer is all too aware of the potential problems in either moving up or down in distance and often it is because the horse has not had great results at other distances that they are trying a different distance anyway.

But if a horse that has previously had good results at a certain distance is trying a new distance for the very first time then this could be a good reason to oppose the horse in the betting. I think that there needs to be other factors at work as well if you want to oppose a horse but any horse that is attempting a new distance for the first time is making a step into the unknown.

The physiological make up of a racehorse will not be something that is readily apparent except to specialists in that field but take it as a given that horses operate in exactly the same way as athletes when it comes to finding optimal distances. But trainers through sheer necessity are forced to try their mounts at various distances and these races sometimes throw up some very interesting situations.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson