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Originally Posted by pandy
The reason why some horses run a huge number then move up in class and can't duplicate it is Pressure. I guess you could call it pace pressure but it's not necessarily evident in the actual fractions of the race. It's in the "bunching" of horses. For example, a common scenario, a horse drops from an allowance to a n2l claimer, let's say a $20,000 claiming race for non winners of 2 wins. The horse goes out to the lead with another horse and they pull away from the rest of the field, then the horse puts that one away, opens up and wins in 1:09.3, taking a Beyer of 95.
The next start the owners put the horse back in an allowance race, the fractions and final time are indentical, but the horse finishes off the board and runs a Beyer of 85. What was the difference? Bunching. In the NW3 allowance field, once again the horse goes out for the lead and one other pace rival goes with it. But, this time right behind them there are four other horses bunched together chasing the pace in close proximity. In other words, the field is more tightly bunched. This creates a tremendous amount of pressure.
Believe me, I ran track in high school and when I ran against the tougher teams it was much more difficult to run to my fastest personal time. This was mainly due to the fact that the better teams had several competitive (fast) runners so while I was running there were runners all around me. Against the weaker squads, I would either be running on my own, or perhaps with one other runner of similar talents. It is much, much, much tougher to run in a field of runners that are more closely bunched.
The fractions and final time don't always reflect this, which is the reason why class is tough to analyze, but that is what it is. Simply speaking, the higher class fields have more contenders, are more competitive, and therefore there is more pressure because the horses are more closely bunched.
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