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In 1996:
In the Arlington Invitational Handicap Cigar carried 130 lbs to a 3 1/2 length
victory over Dramatic Gold who carried 118 lbs.
In the Pacific Classic (a weight for age race), the end of Cigar's winning
streak, Cigar carried 124 lbs to be defeated by Dare and Go who also carried
124 lbs. After ending Cigar's winning streak, Dare and Go, went on to win. .
.0 (that's zero) races.
In the Woodward Stakes Cigar redeemed himself, carrying 126 lbs defeating two
horses that were carrying 121.
In the Breeders Cup Classic Cigar (126) was defeated by Alphabet Soup (126).
This data would seem to suggest that Cigar was more successful when he carried
more weight than his competitors. I have no intention of making this
contention.
Realistically speaking, if we want to understand Cigar's defeat in the Pacific
Classic (I was there that day), we have to look beyond the weight he was
carrying on his back.
Some people (including his jockey) suggest that Cigar was beaten by rider
error. Jerry Bailey says that he never should have chased Siphon(Brz) through
such punishing fractions. He had nothing left for the home stretch. But
then, Jerry Bailey and Bill Mott (Cigar's trainer) didn't chase Siphon(Brz) in
the Hollywood Gold Cup (about 1 month earlier) when he was riding Geri, and
Siphon won, pretty much, wire-to-wire. So who's to say whether Cigar would
have been defeated by Siphon if he hadn't tried to keep up.
Some people suggest that Cigar was defeated by a plane trip to Dubai and back,
which, no matter how you slice it, is going to take something out of a horse.
Some people suggest that Cigar was defeated by a plane trip from New York to
California three days before the race.
Some people suggest that Cigar was defeated by the fact that he was pretty
much lame in his back legs by that time.
Some people (those that saw the horses in the post parade) suggest that Cigar
was defeated by Dare and Go because Cigar was having a bad day and Dare and Go
was having a good day (if you could have seen that horse that day. . .he was
READY to run).
Whatever it was that defeated Cigar, it wasn't weight.
In fact, there is absolutely no statistical evidence whatsoever that
demonstrates that weight carried has any effect on the outcome of sprint
racing. Horses carrying little weight do not win by wider margins, they do
not clock faster times over the same distances on the same tracks. The best
that can be said about weight carried in sprint racing is that intuitively we
feel that it "ought" to make a difference. There is no evidence to bear this
out, not even in sprint racing.
Forego, a renowned "handicap" horse had successes and failures under heavy and
light weights.
Early detractors of Pharlap complained that "of course he could win, with that
little dinky jockey he had," but then they piled the weight on him and he
still won.
Man o' War won no matter how much weight he gave away.
There is no correlation whatsoever between weight carried in a race and order
of finish.
There is no correlation whatsoever between weight carried in a race and
finishing time.
Go ahead, look at the Racing Form, look at the Thoroughbred Times, look at
historical records. You won't find it.
Which brings us to endurance.
In the few instances where studies have been done attempting to link success
in endurance to rider weight, no link has been found. To say that fewer
heavyweights win than do middleweights is to say nothing. More middleweights
compete than do heavyweights.
The fact is, the majority of competitors in endurance are physically fit
women. Physically fit, for obvious reasons (which I hope that I don't have to
go into). And women, because, well. . .it is an amateur horse sport, and
amateur all amateur horse sports are populated by women. I know of no men who
say to themselves, "I am not going to ride endurance because I am too heavy,
and therefore have no chance of winning." The people that I know who do not
compete in endurance, do not compete in endurance for other reasons: the
sport does not suit them (biggest reason), they don't have the horse for it,
they don't have the time to condition, they don't have the money. . .
Physically fit women rarely ever are heavyweights (note that I don't say
never). Most people who participate in this sport fall in the weight range
(including tack) of 150-180 lbs. And what do you know?? Most of the winners
do too.
I am willing to concede that fat (note I do not say heavy) endurance riders do
not compete as successfully as those that are not fat. But this is not
because of the extra weight that the horse is required to carry, but rather
because the rider is physically unfit to be a serious contender in the sport.
The placement of a load on a horse's back is far more relevant than the actual
weight of the load, and how that load shifts as the horse moves (i.e. the
dynamic placement rather than the static placement) is even more relevant.
There is absolutely no way that any handicapping formula could compensate for
that (this is true for sprint racing too, BTW. Why else would an
owner/trainer consent to have Lafitte Pincay ride his horse at "3 lbs over"
instead of getting a jockey that can make the weight? Go to Santa Anita
someday and you will find that frequently horses are sent to the post "over"
weight.)
I am not saying that the weight carried is irrelevant to the training,
conditioning, and competing an endurance horse (or a sprint racer either).
Nor am I saying that weight carried has no bearing on the amount of work done
by a horse over distance.
What I am saying is that the relationship between weight carried and the time
it takes to complete (note that this is not the same as "work done") is far
too complicated to reduce to any kind of formula. It varies from horse to
horse, from climate to climate, from terrain to terrain, from distance to
distance, from rider to rider, from day to day. . .
To attempt to codify it into rules by which we then try to handicap endurance
horses is to open a can of worms that would best be left FIRMLY shut. To
attempt to 'level the playing field' by monkeying around with weight
requirements would be to introduce a multitude of inequities. We would then
have to remedy these inequities by adding more handicapping criteria or
abandon the idea all together. I say, let's abandon the idea all together
now, before we introduce these inequities.
kat
Orange County, Calif.
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