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#1
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![]() I think that in the year of the younger and new trainers in the Derby, a few of them could learn a lessor or two from Carl N...
ALostTexan |
#2
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![]() He treats them like trotters
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4ySSg4QG8g |
#3
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![]() So true. Standardbreds are amazing. They warm up by going like a mile, and then on their major stakes days, they have qualifying heats to determine the finals.
I was at the Little Brown Jug last year, and it looked like the winner could have went a couple more miles without skipping a beat... ALostTexan |
#4
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![]() Before the Civil War in the US, the vast majority of Thoroughbred races were raced in heats of 4 miles, best two out of three. The famous match between American Eclipse and Henry that brought 50,000 people to a field on Long Island (more people than lived in New York City at the time, I believe), the legendary races between Lexington and Lecomte, all 4 mile heats.
One noted race had three winners from three heats, so they went a fourth, which another horse won. So they ran another heat, which went to a previous heat-winner, a mare called Maria, who became famous as '20-mile Maria'. Andy Jackson tried for years to find a horse who could beat her but never did. Of course, horses didn't start running in these 4-milers until they were 4 or older - youngsters ran in 8f heats. 'Dash' racing (the winner determined by a single heat) gradually took over in the 1860s and 1870s - the Travers was one of the first important 'dashes', at 1 3/4 miles. Yet all the 'dash' winners, and all modern TBs, were descended from those 4-mile heat runners. |