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I had an idea earlier – why doesn’t some entrepreneurial racecourse manager set up a horse racing time trial test?
Working like a time trial in cycling – you could have a series of horses running over the same trip one after another and being timed. You might argue it’d be a test of jockeyship more than horse ability but I think it’d be an intriguing little experiment if it was done cleverly. Use a big screen to show the times along with pictures of each horse running its trial, like they do in, say, downhill skiing, with sectionals to show if horse behind/ahead of the leader.
With a decent prize you’d attract entrants and I think it’d be pretty interesting. Maybe there have been some precedents.
Stupid idea?
Not a bad idea at all, perhaps it could work over 5 furlongs. I doubt if you’d get group class colts or fillies turning up, but with the right money and publicity, perhaps the sort of tough, high-class 5 furlong horses you’d find in the Vodafone Dash or the Bovis h’cap (or whatever they’re called these days)
Harness racing, particularly across the atlantic, used to have a great tradition of time trials, but that seems to have disappeared in recent times.
The last significant one was Niatross’s record-annihilating 1980 time trial at Lexington where he paced the Red Mile in 1 49 1/5, knocking nearly 3 seconds off the old mark.
Here it is on youtube, filmed from the grandstand https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlZCF-g3__I
Only thing I could see as a problem would be the ground. On certain days there could be a significant difference between the ground for the first runner compared to the ground for the last. A heavy shower of rain could be just enough
Isn’t it the same as what used to be done in Phase B of Classic format 3 day eventing?
Seemed boring to me.
Value Is EverythingCould be interesting to watch
What kind of horse would be suited ?
you wouldn’t fancy a hold up horse or one who needed covering up to settle.
cormack15 hard at work in his office –
Something similar will happen at Doncaster, Kempton and Newmarket in the next six weeks – called breeze up sales. Although they aren’t timed officially, there will be plenty of agents with stopwatches to find out the times for these 2-y-olds covering a quarter mile.
I think if you tried this with older horses, the best method would be to time a flying quarter mile, rather than operating from a standing start. That way, no stalls would be needed, so you could run the time trials between races. One issue would be stabling, as current BHA rules require every horse to have a stable at the racecourse, so this would reduce the number of available slots for the normal races.
I love the idea but think it would probably be best on the all-weather. As mentioned above, the first runners would get the best of the ground on turf, especially if you were using a course with an established ‘racing line’ preferred by most jockeys. I don’t think the courses would appreciate the damage to their turf, either.
I also think it would be best at 7f and beyond. Half of the challenge with a cycling time trial comes in pacing yourself correctly to use maximum energy and get the fastest possible time. At five furlongs, there is less jockey skill required – it’s little more than “ping the start and start pushing”. A longer distance would make for a better test of riding ability and make it more watchable by giving TV/racecourse commentators/analysts something strategic to talk about.
Great idea DC. Time trials are public knowledge (if not competitive) in the USA and Hong Kong, which can only be good for punters and the integrity of the sport. Maybe you could even make it compulsory and stipulate that every sound horse in training must take part in a time trial at least once per season.
Lol Yeats. I did wonder if I was going stark raving.
I like the idea of, say, six or seven horses, one between each race, as per AP’s suggestion. Would provide some crowd entertainment between races for those not paddock watching, etc. Timed from a rolling start passing a sensor at a marked point would work too and avoid stalls and stalls handlers needing to be involved.
I definitely think it’d be worth a go, even just as a bit of a sideshow one day just to see how it worked out.
I was thinking about the skiers, they are doing the opposite, going from timed single runs to actual races with two or more down the hills together.There’d be no point in having it scattered about between races, it would completely lack focus and nobody would bother watching.
If you’re going to do it at all, don’t be half-@rsed about it.
Have it as a standalone event with its own slot in the main body of the card i.e. not the cop-out first or last event.
Lol Yeats. I did wonder if I was going stark raving.
Judging by the response in this thread, your not alone.
and I thought it was me that was bonkers
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