Ask The Experts
General Category => Ask the Experts => Topic started by: jimbo66 on September 09, 2004, 11:10:24 AM
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JB (and others),
I am not disagreeing with your views on weight and the impact on horses. I frankly don\'t have a strong opinion and have heard it argued well both ways in the past.
However, I don\'t agree with the argument that JB makes that says \"5 pounds is 1/2 of a percent of a horse\'s weight, what is 1/2 of a percent of a one mile race, 26 feet.\"
I have an analogy, which is a bit of a reach, but I think it points out a flaw in that logic.
A 150 pound distance runner is running a 10k race. As we all know, weight fluctuates (some of us more so than others). The runner is a bit heavy the day of the race, weighing 151.5 (1% heavier than usual). With this extra 1% body weight, running 10,000 meters, should I expect a 1% regression in his time (100 meters). If he was running a marathon, would you deduct 1% of 26 miles?
I know horses are not humans and obviously that makes my analogy far from perfect. And weighing 5 pounds heavier and carrying five pounds are two different things. However, horses obviously carry weight more efficiently than humans do.
I apologize for the slightly offbase analogy, but I don\'t think 1% more weight = 1% impact on distance.
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The flaw in your analogy is that the distance runner will not remain at the same weight for the entire 10k race. The one constant with a racehorse is the weight they carry. Thanks to JB for coming up with a number to use as a starting point. Whether one agrees with that number or not the handicapper can either add to or subtract from that start or, of course, ignore it.
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As I said in my original post, we do NOT use a straight ratio-- we actually use less. What we use (which Ragozin was using before me) was based on working with the data, and seeing how tight the figures held up-- as I have said many times it\'s not perfectly accurate because they won\'t give us the weights of the horses.
Once a racehorse is fit, according to every trainer I\'ve ever worked with, weight = strength-- losing weight is a bad thing. Don\'t know squat about human runners, but with horses there is a big difference between body weight and weight carried-- again, it would be great (and add a lot to handicapping) if they would weigh the damn horses and publish the information.