There are probably some 2,500 dollar claimers at Los Alamitos (thoroughbreds) who could beat a Grade 1 horse like Game On Dude in a really short race, maybe 100 yards or even 2 furlongs...but once the better horse can finally catch up to the quick cheapie, he will pass him and the margin will steadily increase depending on how long the race happens to be. A really strong 20k claimer would probably be able to beat Game on Dude to the top of the stretch before GOD reeled him in and crushed him....so, the length of the race is everything when it comes to a par time, the shorter the race, the more likely it is that a run of the mill decent cheap claimer can come close to the track record.
The Track record for 4 1/2 Furlongs at Los Alamitos for Thoroughbreds is 49.2 set in 1990. Recently, a 2,500 claimer named Buds Pal won a race at Los Al on Oct 27th in 50.4
So, he was less than 2 seconds away from the track record.
I would bet at a track like Belmont, or Santa Anita, a cheap claimer can't even come within 5 seconds of the track record at 1 mile...so, there's probably some formula that you could use to compare track records at all different distances to see how close the solid hard knocking cheap claimer can come to the record for the distance.
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