ok i\'ll show my ignorance...i look at the horses you mention and can\'t figure out what a re-break is....appreciate someone taking a few seconds to explain it.
may everyone here cash in on the Derby:)
The way I understand it, a rebreak is when a horse makes a second move during one race.
Like he makes a move on the far turn and takes the lead-only to give it up, but then \'breaks\' again mid-stretch, challenging for the lead anew..only to run out of real estate and pick up a minor prize.
Rebreaking is the mark of a good, competitive horse. You don\'t see many of them these days.
Oddly enough it was rarely seen not that long ago, but now almost a daily event.
See the Dr. Fixit article posted here. That might help.
Someone on this tree said that a rebreak is a sign of a good competitive horse and that is correct.
To understand it in visual terms look closely at a horse who has been on the pace or pressing it, who reaches the head of the lane in company, and actually appears to accelerate as if he just left the gate. He separates himself from his company just at that point and seems to draw off. He is actually just slowing down but more slowly than the others.
Most every horse runs slower in the final furlong of a race than in the first...closers are usually just optical illusions...they are horses who are slowing down less at the end of a race.
There have got to be a thousand of you out there who can name the one horse who won a Classic race while running each successive quarter mile faster than his previous quarter. I believe that this phenomenon has only been recorded once.
If this was true, he was the greatest American horse of all time.
good thread ....i thought that might be it but I didn\'t see it in the numbers for Funny Cide in the Wood so that confused me...of course the PPs don\'t show what happened between the calls.
anyway thanx for all for clarifying this.
interesting point about closers also.
george
Secretariat won he Belmont with successively faster quarters is my understanding.
Easy Goer commonly put in faster quarter splits than the first two splits in his races. And his come come split was always very good though not the fastest.
I have always referred to it as \"split run\". Easy Goer was capable of greater split run than any horse I have ever handicapped. And there was a little known Florida sprinter trained by the same trainer that trains Trust N Luck named \"Hooting Star\" which made mincemeat of Alm\'s \"slowing down\" theory. He looked like a greyhound in the stretch. His body undulated with his stride and his final quarter was always fastest and many times in 22 and change. He holds the 7 furlong mark at Hialeah with Seattle Slew. Slew set it first so Hooting Stars name is not on the credits. I was there on Hooters day. He would have embarrassed Slew.
If I recall Easy Goer\'s Belmont correctly Sunday Silence and Le Voyager were both in front of him with a quarter mile to run. Its my feeling that a so called \"scraped track\" tends to favor the front running animals. Easy Goer merely had the chance to unwind and show his superior gas tank. He gained over eight lengths on Sunday Silence in that stretch run and did it in hand. Distance is what separates horses of quality. It\'s a shame the races that Kelso and Forego won to demonstrate their superiority don\'t exist any more. I would settle for a Jockey Club Gold Cup and Breeders Cup Classic of 1 1/2 miles.
Tabi
You are right about Secretariat.
You are right about Easy Goer\'s Belmont.
But the fact is that Secretariat may be the only horse who won a Classic, which is what I mentioned, running successively faster quarters.
As for the Florida horse who picked up speed through a race, he was trained by my trainer...he\'s a great guy...and he does not drug \'em.
It seems to me that the breed is getting weaker ,they breed for speed ,and this seems to knock horses out before their time,years ago they ran races longer the JCGC was @ 1 1/2 miles the the fillies ran 1m in the acorn ,1 1/8 miles in the Mother Goose and 1 1/2 miles in the Coaching Club American Oaks,some races in NY for handicap horses were run at 2 miles or more.Derby horses years ago ran 20 times or more before the first Saturday in May.The Whitney\'s ,Vanderbilt\'s and Phippses controlled whom was bred to whom.We will never see horses as durable as they were in the past and its a shame ,from a fans point of view ,this game doesn\'t mean as much to me as it used to.Who wouldn\'t have liked to seen what a horse like Point Given could have done age age 4.Cigar was the only t hing close to horses in that era as far as durability goes.There was something special about waiting for a really good 3y.o.\'s ,4y.o. campaign
Tabi (and alm):
I concur about Secretariat, but I think the race was the Derby.
If I remember correctly, Secretariat\'s 10F split for the Belmont was 1:59 & change. Since he finished in 2:24 flat, the final quarter could not have been faster than all the other quarters.
You are dead right on Easy\'s Belmont. That was the first TC race I ever saw in person. I was standing on the 2nd floor grandstand at the top of the stretch. It remains the most overpowering move I\'ve ever seen.
Good luck Saturday.
Bob
After looking it up ,I found that Secretariat ran the Derby in 47:2,1:11:4,1:36:1,1:59:2,in the Belmont it was 46:1,1:09:4,1:59,2:24.
Post Edited (04-30-03 15:34)
I think that I had the wrong race...Bob said it was Secretariat\'s Derby...which is probably the right one.