Hi
Are the best racehorses really born in April? If so, what’s the science behind it?
I look forward to your feedback
davidmich
Actually, every racehorse celebrates its birthday on January 1. That is the day a horse running as a two-year-old starts running as a three-year-old.
In the wild, equine gestation is 11 months, and mares are not in estrus during the winter months, because survival rates of foals would be low in the harsh winter. So April would be an optimum time for wild horses to be born.
I assume you’re talking about northern hemisphere horses. I had not heard of this. I took a quick look at the Bloodhorse’s l999 list of the top 100 racehhorses, and the top 10 has 5 horses, including the top 2 horses, that were born in March or earlier:
1.Man o’ War March 29, 1917
2.Secretariat March 30, 1970
3.Citation April 11, 1945
4.Kelso April 4, 1957
5.Count Fleet March 24, 19
6.Dr. Fager April 6, 1964
7.Native Dancer March 27, 1950
8.Forego April 30, 1970
9.Seattle Slew February 15, 1974
10.Spectacular Bid February 17, 1976
What about the triple crown winners?
1919 Sir Barton ??, 1916
1930 Gallant Fox March 23, 1927
1935 Omaha March 24, 1932
1937 War Admiral May 2, 1934
1941 Whirlaway April 2, 1938
1943 Count Fleet March 24, 1940
1946 Assault March 26, 1943
1948 Citation April 11, 1945
1973 Secretariat March 30, 1970
1977 Seattle Slew February 15, 1974
1978 Affirmed February 21, 1975
In these 11 horses, two, maybe three (no month or day found for Sir Barton) horses were born in April and fewer than in the previous group. From this scant data, I would tend not to believe that the “best horses are born in April.” However, I’d need to compare either of the above with a sample of “average” or lesser quality of horses.
In Australia, the official racehorse birthdate is August 1. Here the optimal time for a TB to be born is late winter/early spring graph of breeding seasons, . This means that there is the longest possible time until the horse’s first birthday. Conversely, if a horse is born on July 1st, then technically it is a one year old on August 1st - only 31 days after its birth.*
Sounds ridiculous, but official age is how eligibility is decided for age races - which can be very lucrative. Only horses a certain age are allowed in them, and a horse can have a significant handicap if it is quite a bit younger than the other 2 or 3 year old horses it is racing against. And a significant advantage if it is quite a bit older than the others in the race.
As far as April birth being optimal in relation to January 1 as the northern hemisphere birthdate; it equates to November here, and I think most studs have finished their breeding by this time. Not so important for horses bred to stay, and generally trained for races at a later age, but I would have thought a bit late for sprint racing horses.
*As a caveat to the above, I believe that if the stud’s official records show that a mare was covered after the set date, and the foal is genuinely premature, that it may be considered to be born in the correct season. See aus breeding season change
Based on this, I could see having an actual birthday early in the year being a positive. A horse born on Feb 1 and one born on Dec 1 could both be running as 2 year olds, yet the first horse is 10 months older/more developed.
Malcolm Gladwell describes a similar situation with human athletes in his book “Outliers”…as Wikipedia’s summary of the book puts it:
Thank you all. Very helpful.
davidmich