that was a great catch about last year blenheim--i wish i'd seen your post and had made the connection sooner.
robert--papillon's first rule is that the fastest way to go broke in horse racing is to take your money out of your wallet and place it on a horse.
i used to agree that a few pounds couldn't really effect the outcome, but when you see different horses, at different tracks, with different trainers and different owners, running in different weather, all having the same outcomes, there has to be a reason.
but the reasons usually trotted out are pretty facile and trite tbh, and basically boil down too--"i was wrong. that horse really just sucks and this new horse is really the second coming of [insert favorite all time top horse here]." but i'm not so sure now.
i think it would be a lot better for the horses and the gamblers to only have weight for age races for 2 year olds and 3 year olds though to the belmont, with steadily increasing but equal weights for each race.
it would be better for the horses, because horses that can't carry over 120 lbs, would be sparred the pain and suffering of being forced to run in KY derby just because they won a big prep at 116 lbs, and have enough money to start.
it would be better for the gamblers because they would be better able to tell a horse's true class--class is not just ability to stay, it has always been ability to carry weight too--it's the whole reason races are handicapped in the first place--but with young horses there isn't enough data to be able to handicap correctly, and getting it wrong can ruin horse and sour the racing public on racing.
turningforhome, i don't know if your question about dead weight vs live weight was directed to me, but the answer has to be yes i think. i know from all my years in jumping and eventing that the rider has a lot of control over how burdensome his or her weight is to a horse. as unintuitive as it sounds, it is often easier for a horse to jump with a skilled 180lb man on board than with an equally skilled 100 lb female on board--because the lighter rider is more easily displaced (i.e. looses her seat easier), throwing the horse's balance out of whack. also the more weight the rider has the more he or she can use their own forward momentum to add to the horse's forward momentum, as well as correct for loses in balance by the horse.
but lead weight is not able to work with the horse, it can only work against the horse, so i would assume that a 126lb jockey is much easier to carry than a 100lb jockey and 26 lbs of lead.
two thoughts occurred to me today watching shack fade, (1) trainers that can influence the weight assignments at a given track, would have a very big advantage in every handicap race, which would parade right in front of everyone everyday but that no one would ever see, even though it is right in front of them.
if this is going on, then what you would expect to see is the trainer dominating at particular tracks with low weight horses, but struggling in weight for age races at all tracks, and in all races away from their home tracks.
the second thought was that lasix may make it harder for horses to carry and recover from carrying weight, due to its propensity to leech calcium and potassium out of any animal on it, along with the fact that dehydration makes all animals weaker. it might be that weight is an even bigger impediment now, than 40-50-90-100 years ago.
anyway, thanks again for all the great comments and suggestions!
