Theory On Who horses who love the OFF TRACk

[sobrenatural]

The reason i believe horses run well on the off track is because they actually hate the surface.And horses who run poorly is because they love playing in the surface..
Think about it we walk faster when we want to get out of the rain,,If its raining when you leave the track your going to run or walk AT A FASTER PACE just to get out of the rain to get to your car...
And you if you dont mind the rain then all your going to do is walk and enjoy it..
Horses who love the water wont care about leaving the surface,,so they wont run as fast!!

[Cangamble]

Originally Posted by sobrenatural

The reason i believe horses run well on the off track is because they actually hate the surface.And horses who run poorly is because they love playing in the surface..
Think about it we walk faster when we want to get out of the rain,,If its raining when you leave the track your going to run or walk AT A FASTER PACE just to get out of the rain to get to your car...
And you if you dont mind the rain then all your going to do is walk and enjoy it..
Horses who love the water wont care about leaving the surface,,so they wont run as fast!!

I'd rather go with the reason stated by one of the radio show analysts. Horses rely on good footing when they escape predators in the wild, if their footing is uncomfortable, they likely will not run to their potential. It is the feet and the shoes.

[46zilzal]

Anthropomorphizing is great fun but horses simply run.

Horses, since they are herd animals, fear unsafe footing as it is their PRIME method of escape in the wild and is a hard wired instinct.

Horses that do well on off tracks are relative to others, as they are LESS AFRAID of the unsafe footing than those that do poorly.
Simple as that.

[johnhannibalsmith]

To add to the last line of the previous post...

My friend and deceased jock friend used to say, "There ain't no such thing as a horse that likes the mud, just those that hate it less than the others."

[rokitman]

Perhaps the water acts as a cooling system for horses with sensitive tootsies.

[classhandicapper]

How many time have you evaluated a horse and concluded he hated the mud or loved the mud based on prior races and then saw him do the opposite in a future race?

I'm really careful about drawing conclusions off a single good/bad effort. There has to be a lot of evidence. But it was happening to me often enough that I started to think about it a lot. I'm pretty convinced that there are actually very few horses that love/hate wet tracks.

What I think happens is that wet tracks get worked on by the maintenance crew and sometimes develop strong biases. Either they get speed favoring, there are specific paths that are way better (sometimes tire tracks) etc... Also, some horse get tons of mud kicked into their faces in specific races etc...

I think all that tends to cause slightly more volatile results. Some horse take advantage of the conditions and others are hurt by them.

But if you pay close attention to these things, you start to realize that most horses can handle wet tracks if the track is playing to their style, they get a good path to run on, and don't get buried in a sea of goo. Of course there are exceptions though.

[46zilzal]

SPEED moves up in off going almost universally

[magwell]

After further review..... I think its breeding and feet, rarely do you see horses with big flat feet the type that prefer grass run good on mud or slop and horses with little deer feet that don't handle grass, they can run on the off going, but like everything else, there are exceptions to this....

[oddsmaven]

The one thing about sloppy tracks that stands out to me is that there are usually much bigger gaps among the field during the running then on a fast track.

My theory regarding that is twofold:

I assume many don't like the footing, finding it slippery, therefore those that handle it are able to really open up on them...and secondly, it seems like the sloppy surface is less tiring - so when the speed doesn't weaken, the chasers & closers often get discouraged and give up the chase creating those large gaps.

[joanied]

Ever watch horses at liberty... where there is both dry ground and mud puddles...they'll go out of their way to avoid the muddy surface, if given the freedom to choose.

[FenceBored]

Originally Posted by joanied

Ever watch horses at liberty... where there is both dry ground and mud puddles...they'll go out of their way to avoid the muddy surface, if given the freedom to choose.

Wellllllll, generally speaking I'd have to agree, but I've got this one girl who seeks out the puddles and stands there splashing in them. Seems to have a lot of fun, too. Guess who gets to clean her up?

[joanied]

Ah...yes, but your girl is splashing in a water puddle...not a mud puddle ...and there is a difference...according to my horses anyway

[46zilzal]

Originally Posted by oddsmaven

The one thing about sloppy tracks that stands out to me is that there are usually much bigger gaps among the field during the running then on a fast track.

My theory regarding that is twofold:

I assume many don't like the footing, finding it slippery, therefore those that handle it are able to really open up on them...and secondly, it seems like the sloppy surface is less tiring - so when the speed doesn't weaken, the chasers & closers often get discouraged and give up the chase creating those large gaps.

It is the FLY BACK that separates the field. Would you run if you were unable to see?

There are entire cards when the "clean silk syndrome" runs all day: CLEAN without getting covered with gooo.

[dav4463]

I don't know if you can compare horses to dogs, but I had two dogs..... One dog loved the rain, the other hated it. The one who hated the rain could outrun the other in a storm despite being obviously slower and smaller.

[sobrenatural]

My point made...thank you...if you hate something you would do whatever you can to get away from it....running faster is usually the answer