Skip a stall in fields of 6 or less

[Stillriledup]

It would be like the nfl moving up kick offs or the nhl and no touch icing. There are many fields of 6 or less in today's game, why not skip some stalls to prevent less contact at starts. Or, how about 1 and 2 are together, skip stall 3, than 2 more horses before another skipped stall. Would this prevent some starting gate injuries for horses, jocks and asst starters?

Any thoughts on why this is a bad idea?

[maclr11]

I agree with in small fields of opening up the 1 post position and using gates 2 through whatever to avoid the trap of the rail. My thought with creating gaps in a field would be that instead of the bumping you see now that happens out of the gate with a coming together. If you leave space the contact would be of much higher monumentum and because the horses would be moving at a faster speed when the bumping occurs you would see bigger and heavier bumps that would be much more dangerous.

[davew]

Originally Posted by Stillriledup

It would be like the nfl moving up kick offs or the nhl and no touch icing. There are many fields of 6 or less in today's game, why not skip some stalls to prevent less contact at starts. Or, how about 1 and 2 are together, skip stall 3, than 2 more horses before another skipped stall. Would this prevent some starting gate injuries for horses, jocks and asst starters?

Any thoughts on why this is a bad idea?

For some horses, the start is like bumper cars. If they start veering and have 3 more feet to pick up momentum, the collision will be much harder.

[Greyfox]

The idea of skipping stalls is a good one.

However, I refuse to play races with less than 8 entries.
(Sometimes this is difficult in Pick 3's.)

[shots]

More gate schooling is needed. Include more emphasis on the start in training.

[SuperPickle]

So I think I have the answer to this because I asked a starter this question once. My actual question was since the gate was designed with bigger fields in mind why don't tracks like Golden Gate use a gate with my distance between stalls. So essentially the same effect as mentioned.

Horses are heard animals. Their instinct is to run as a group. So three thoughts on starting them farther apart.

1. Some would just drift toward each other and you'd simply have the bumper cars 50 feet later.
2. It could string them out more and then make them rank later because certain horses like running with horses.
3. If you started them super far apart some horses might not see other horses would could affect their speed out of the gate. For example if a speed horse breaks next to other speed he's going to try and run with him or in front of him. If they started really far apart the outside might not see the inside horse until he's cleared the lead. This would depend on where the race start in reference to to the turn. Essentially more distance between them could dull speed.


The starter basically told me he doubted it would fix more troubles than it might cause.

[Stillriledup]

Great replies guys, thanks.

[wisconsin]

I know it's all about safety, but when a horse draws the rail, he should get the rail, not the 2 or 3 hole like they do when space allows.