Where have the fast horses gone ?

[Barny]

The times for the 100 metre sprint keeps getting lower as the athletes take advantage of new technology to improve their fitness and explosiveness ..... Swimming records keep getting broken as the swimmers take advantage of new technology to improve their fitness and costumes .....

Why aren't horses going faster ????

Look at the improvement in all the other sports too !!

[jose]

Although the times for horses are getting quicker I don't think new technology is helping, in fact it may be hindering, insofar as in times gone by a horse with feet issues may have been retired, now it can be patched up and kept in work with new technology such as synthetic Hoof Filler or some such product.
Or perhaps the breeding industry is on a race to the bottom, not the top.

[moeee]

Its more likely because the turf is much softer than iy used to be back when hard tracks were prepared.
Its much harder to run fast times on soft than hard ground.

[stugots]

beat me too it moeee - think the standard these days is to err on the side of caution when preparing tracks for raceday & have them softer than may have been the case in the past

that said often see track/class records fall, so there still some fast nags getting around

[kumite]

looking after horse welfare more these days
caviar prime example
why bust a gut to win if you don't need to

[The Ocho]

It would be good if Black Caviar actually did break a track record one day (rather than just going for the wins in a row record).

Imagine seeing her name whenever someone looks up the track records. The jockey is just easing her down 200 metres from the post for goodness sake.

Smash some long standing records and then we can say we have the best sprinter in the world, who actually also runs fast, instead of some horse just beating a few nags in a few races in a row. IMHO.

[The Ocho]

At least Black Caviar ran a race record today. :)

It looked hairy there for a few seconds though.

[kumite]

still something up her sleeve
runner-up nice run
daylight to the rest