Weighty Question

[TGJB]

\"From going over to coming back, she only lost 8 kilos...\"
--- Ed Dunlop, trainer of Ouija Board

So somebody is weighing them somewhere.

1-- As we have said before, 5 pounds= 1 point is an estimate. In reality, 5 pounds will mean more to a 700 pound 2yo filly than an 1100 pound older male.

2-- New ground (at least here)-- think it might be useful to know how much a horse weighed when he ran his top, and that he\'s lost 30 pounds since? That he comes back off a layoff weighing 50 pounds more?

3-- Yeah, I know, it won\'t work if the clerk of scales at NYRA weighs\'em...

[beyerguy]

They used to (still might) weigh harness horses at Freehold and print the weights in the program.  Didn\'t seem to be much of a factor at all in performance.

Occasionally I read articles about a horse\'s weight in the Graded stakes categories after an especially tough campaign like the Triple Crown etc... I don\'t know if the trainers are actually weighing them or can just see the differences visually, but it\'s obviously of interest to them.

[bobphilo]

Hmm, since 5 lbs is about 5% of the weight of an average 1000 lb horse, maybe we should adjust a horse\'s figure by 1 point for every 5% shift in bodyweight rather than for 5 lbs. Of course that would require that everyone would be weighing horses everywhere, rather than just someone doing it somewhere.
A further complication, what if a horse is coming off a lay-off with a 50 lb weight-gain, mostly in the form of flab. Do we downplay the weight he's carrying in the saddle because he's bigger or increase it because the flab just adds to his burden?
Food for thought – or perhaps, horse feed for though.

Bob

[milwmike]

50 pounds would be 5% - 5 is 1/2 of 1%.

[GAM]

You need to move the decimal point.  5lb.s is not 5% of a 1000 lb horse\'s body weight, it is .5%.

[beyerguy]

To put that in perspective, I weigh 220.  If I lose 1/2%, that is 1.1 pounds.  That isn\'t likely to effect me much.

[NoCarolinaTony]

Dog racing does show weight of the Dog. An old trick to slow the dog down was to feed it before the race. Weight gain was noticeable therefore they implimented a weigh in before the race vs a published weight in the program.

NC Tony

[bobphilo]

GAM Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You need to move the decimal point.  5lb.s is not
> 5% of a 1000 lb horse\'s body weight, it is .5%.

I stand corrected. Both you and milwmike are right. The appropriate adjustement would be 1 point for every .5% shift.
In any case we would still need the horses\' weights to apply any adjustment.

Bob

[kev]

I wonder if we ran a mile or longer and added weight, you think we all could feel it?

[TGJB]

Kev-- it doesn\'t matter whether we would feel it. It matters whether it would affect how fast we ran.

I did something this at the Expo, but 5 pounds= 1 point= about 1 1/2 lengths at a mile, which in turn is about 15 feet. That\'s a really tiny percentage of a mile-- about 1/4 of a percent. Would we feel that small a dfference?

Only if we bet a horse that got beat by a length because the jock came in 5 pounds over.

[kev]

That\'s what I meaning. I\'m on the weight train on this one. Give me a bug boy anytime.

[SoCalMan2]

In Hong Kong, horses\' weights are followed very closely.  In the past performances, they list the horses weight each time it runs including its weight on the day it was entered in the current race.

[kev]

I don\'t know how that works with horses. Losing weight or gaining. Which would be good for them.