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I don’t think that a horse’s action can be classed as a mechanical movement because it is a living, breathing being and its action or stride would be dictated by the efficiency of its engine room (i.e. the heart and lungs) in pumping the oxygen through the blood vessels to its muscles to give them the energy to gallop and maintain it as required.
I believe it would be affected by ground conditions, as the more a horse sinks into the softer ground, the more energy its engine has to produce in order to maintain it’s stride pattern to continue to gallop. That increased energy production means that it is using up its ‘stamina reserves’ that much quicker than normal (i.e. than it would on fast ground) and as a result it is unable to maintain its optimal speed for as long thereby causing it to get tired and lose its action a lot quicker and also compromising its ability to stay the required distance.
This also explains why if you have a horse that is running at a distance that you are either not sure it is going to stay or it is right on the upper limits of its stamina (Golden Horn in the KG and Gleneagles in the Juddmonte), you would not want the race to be run on ground that has soft in its description.
That being said, I feel the mind of the horse is also a key and mysterious component, it may well be that fast ground stops certain ones from producing their best because they are feeling pain when galloping but when its soft that pain is gone so they will be able to ‘let themselves down’ properly – others may find that soft ground makes them unsure of their footing so they can’t gallop like they can on fast ground and thus they are unable to produce their best form or they may just have an aversion to mud in general.
Some horses are just willing to go through the pain barrier regardless (Henbit sustained a hairline fracture in his canonbone when winning 1980 Derby) and we sadly lost Persian Punch & Thomas Chippendale who both died immediately after the finish line of a race as a result of their exertions.
Some seem to have a much bigger will to win than others and will visably stick their heads down and battle to win a race (i.e. Le Moss, Dessie, Double Trigger, Persian Punch & Giants Causeway to name a few). Other horses seem to find various ways of not winning (like pulling themselves up when they get in front, or finding absolutely nothing once they come of the bridle) whilst another group seem set on making their jockeys work overtime in a race before even making an effort.
It is a really fascinating subject and being that horses can’t tell you what their specific issues are, it is really only through a combination of trial and error, trainer/jockey experience and varying degrees of guess work that an explanation as to why a horse has performed in a certain way can be given.
For me, all horse are able to perform (not necessarily at their best) on most types of ground except for the extremes (i.e. firm and heavy) but no matter how consistant these animals may or may not be, at the end of the day, the old saying still rings true: ‘they are not machines’.
Sorry for the long ramble.
I’d imagine that, on a practical level, years ago it was much more difficult to get a horse to the races [especially from Ireland etc] so, once the commitment had been made there was less chance of connections pulling the horse out [although I am going back a few years #showingmyage].
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