Recent content by rolifantje

Thx to everyone who contributed, especially sophiecentaur. Very happy with this thread!

Hmmm not sure. I always thought that they would, but trainers seem to think that it's more a particular shape of foot that will cut through the bog more efficiently than others.

Hi, thanks a lot for your response. Would it be reasonable to generalize your reasoning from 'first stride' to every phase of the race where a horse is trying to accelerate (usually at the start, but also towards the finish)? In that case it makes a lot of sense to me, because it...

That is much appreciated!

OK, this is data for the one mile distance at Ascot race course in England. The data is ordered by 'softness' of the ground. 'Good/Firm' is dry, whereas 'Heavy' is very sticky. The data is for 'handicaps', which are designed to give each horse in the race an equal chance. v2/1v is the ratio of...

Hi sophiecentaur, thanks for your reply. I actually remember reading about the energy being stored in the horse's tendons a while ago. I know that I am making a lot of assumptions, but for the sake of it, just say that horse 1 has 'available energy' E1 and horse 2 has E2 available. Suppose...

Hi Curl, thanks for your post. It answers part (1) of the question. For part (2), allow me to rephrase. Scenario 1 - Firm ground ------------------------ Horse 1 is able to produce energy E1 which allows him to run at speed v1. Horse 2 is able to produce energy E2 which allows him...

Hi. I am a big horse racing fan, and while I am OK with maths, I don't have the knowledge in physics to explain the following well-known horse racing phenomena. When a horse race is run on grass that is wet/sticky, then a) It will take more time to cover the distance of the race than...