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Hey there y’all, first time on this site…
First off what do you think would happen if a 100 rated horse took on a 50 rated horse with the 50lb weight difference? Seems an obvious and rather daft question on the face of it I know. But if this happened – and as it’s theoretical no need to worry about the current well being of the horses, jockey’s ability, who sets the pace etc – and they both ran to their exact O.R. of 100 and 50 would they really finish together? Or would class tell, or would the huge weight advantage give the lesser horse the edge?
I’ve been wondering alot lately about how to really approach hcap form…
You often see horses moving up from 0-55 company having run well to a 0-65 race , only for the horse to be a double figure price and finish well beaten…
So does class tell over weight advantage?
Or does it all revolve around how in form and progressive the horses that come to fore in a hcap are?
How does one define a good hcap race?
Assuming both horses were happy with the conditions (distance, going, course), I suspect it would come down to the distance. Over a short sprint, I don’t think the 50lbs would have a chance to affect the better horse. Over 24 furlongs, I think it would.
50 lbs is around 5% of the average racehorse’s weight. Imagine Usain Bolt (body weight around 207 lbs) carrying an extra 5% in a backpack (11 lbs). He’d still hammer a club athlete over 100 metres. Now imagine the World Marathon Champion (is it still Samuel Kamau Wanjiru?) probably weighing around 170 lbs carrying that extra 5% (8 lbs) over 26 miles. I think a good club runner might well beat him in those circumstances.
This is just a thought experiment – I haven’t done the analysis. I suppose other things might come into it like how big the horses are, whether it’s a demanding course, whether it’s heavy going etc.
Has anyone done the research to see whether this is the case?
irene mc anliss book ;weight on the thoroughbread racehorse’mentions time tests done on the effect of weight on horses conducted by the british army many years ago which suggested smaller weights carried had little effect and weight only started to slow a horse as the weight was increased to over 5 stone but not sure of the distance used,interesting read
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