Comments on: That’s what still makes horse racing

By: nolanimrod

nolanimrod — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 00:35:44 +0000

It’s also a uestion of incentive. Horses aren’t interested in bling. They have no urge to make embarrassing political pronunciamentos, and for horses that are still interested in such things there is more casual sex available than they can handle.

By: Kinch

Kinch — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 03:43:31 +0000

Long-time lurker and miner for nuggets of gold in the droppings of Artfldgr surfacing all leviathan-like here.

I’m a member of a professional punting syndicate. Most of what I know about horses is anecdotal (I am more a quant than a horse person), but one thing I do know is that selective breeding and the closed gene pool for thoroughbreds have resulted in one very common genetic defect in horses: a tendency to haemorrhage in the lungs when galloped hard. Most jurisdictions have a rule that after this happens k times (generally k=2), the horse must be retired.

Incidentally, there is lots of fascinating research out there in the literature on modelling and ‘investing’ in horse racing. In particular, back in the 80s when efficient market theory (Malkiel, and Co.) was the rage, folks realised that here were all kinds of opportunities to study markets and arbitrage in real time (race is over in a minute or so).

Going back further to the post-war efflorescence of systems research publications (a lot of this was classified for the duration), we get Shannon and Kelly on optimal investment strategies, not to mention Isaacs on the optimal way to load up a parimutuel market with one’s wagers.

Finally, although horses aren’t getting faster… humans also aren’t becoming more honest. I’d trust a horse over a jockey or a trainer any day of the week 🙂

Go forth and punt, people!

By: Richard Aubrey

Richard Aubrey — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 02:24:20 +0000

Interesting that pari-mutuel horses are six percent of the horse population, if I read the article correctly.
Of course, other breeds, such as Clydesdales, or Quarter Horses, aren’t going to run a mile or a mile plus very fast. The mechanics necessary to do what they’re bred for preclude pari-mutuel competition.
Surprise. So the question is what happens with the p-m horses. Limits. If we got horses who could run faster, they’d probably not look like the p-m population and might be excluded because, although ostensibly horses, they can’t be told from antelopes except for lack of antlers.
The presumption about horses is that one can ride them or hook them up to pull something. If it transpired that they could run really, really fast but couldn’t pull anything heavier than a Radioflyer, and not carry anything larger than one of the smaller jockeys, they wouldn’t be…horses in the popular understanding.

By: LAG

LAG — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 02:03:12 +0000

So do we need longer horses or taller ones?

By: Dagwood

Dagwood — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 01:38:45 +0000

I agree with Sergey, and would add that the proliferation of new tracks across the country over the past quarter-century or so has led to over-breeding, which seems to have diluted the potential for greatness. The horses who have competed over the last decade in the Kentucky Derby wouldn’t, with rare exceptions, have a chance against the fields of the 1970’s/80’s.

By: texexec

texexec — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 01:08:06 +0000

All the horses I have bet on must have read the linked article and figured it was OK to go slow.

By: Curtis

Curtis — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 01:03:23 +0000

There was a small window in place and time when the state of Virginia practiced selective breeding in the early 1800’s after the slave trade had been outlawed after 1808. Virginia’s main export was slaves and like any commodity, controls were used to promise quality. I suppose some would point to the dominance of black athletes in football and other sports requiring size and endurance. It seems, however, that dominance is passing. Limiting factors would have asserted themselves in the Virginia process and there would have been terrible consequences had the practice continued.

What may have been done by any covert action of any government has yet to reach public attention. There is one parallel: the breeding of terrorists.

By: Sergey

Sergey — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 21:35:33 +0000

The most obvious explanation is that humans never were subject to selective breeding, but race horses were. And there is a limit for improving any trait by selective breeding, too. Horses were strongly pushed to this limit for many decades. If we could do the same with Olympic champions of Kenian extraction (the best runners in the world) for, say, 10 generations, we may have obtained better results.

By: ElMondoHummus

ElMondoHummus — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 21:26:12 +0000

“Despite intensive programs to breed faster thoroughbreds … despite increasing populations from which to choose exceptional individuals, and despite the use of any undetected performance-enhancing drugs, race speeds in these animals have not increased in the last 40—60 years. Thus, for horses and dogs, a limit appears to have been reached.”

The study the article linked seems to be putting the majority of the blame on thoroughbreds and greyhounds supposedly being as highly evolved for running as it could get. But also as the article points out, those are limited gene-pool breeds, and it’s unclear if the mechanical limit of those horses and greyhounds structure are being reached. The implication is that the combination of genetic variability and mechanics is currently reached, but might be circumvented via cross breeding with other breeds.

Interesting hypothesis, but it’s also one that’s got to be a pain to work through. That’s a multigenerational study there.

Anyway, I was hoping the study the article linked at the end would deal more with the mechanics of those animals anatomy, and how it pertains to speed (and therefore would also delve into human mechanics and riff on that), but it turned out to be a statistical study instead. I confess to being a mite disappointed in that. That said, it was still an interesting read, but I still wished for a different approach. 🙁

By: George Pal

George Pal — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 20:15:42 +0000

Break the human record and the human gets millions in endorsements – quite an incentive to train hard and live clean.

Without any incentive but their nature – born to run – a horse is without incentive. Training and running will get you three squares and a shower – thats it. If you win your share of purses and break a few records you go to stud – not bad, but how’s a horse to know?