Reading this articleon Slate.com about the Triple Crown got me wondering: if its tough for a horse to win 3 races in 5 weeks, how long exactly does it take for a horse to fully recover from a race like that?
I know humans are entirely different animals, but the races in the Triple Crown are only about 2 minutes in length. Even if you ask a human to sprint as fast as he can for twice that length, I think most people, especially the best runners in the world, would be fine for a race the next day, nevermind the next week. The article’s making it out like the horse can’t fully recover from a 2 min race without a month in between! That seems…crazy, to me. But then I don’t know anything about horses
Caveat: Everything I know about racehorses is derived from Dick Francis novels, but I don’t think that recovery period is as unreasonably long as you suggest.
For one thing, I wouldn’t bet on the proposition that a human Olympic miler (for an approximate comparison with the Triple Crown races which average a bit more than 1 mile long) would be “fine” with running races on consecutive days. Four-minute-mile pioneer Roger Bannister recounts that having to run races on three consecutive days in the 1952 Olympics really hurt his performance, for example.
Recall that runners, both equine and human, don’t just sit around between races, either: there are training sprints/gallops and other forms of exercise to keep up their conditioning, so it’s not as though that 2-5 minutes per race is the only significant work they do. And the work done during the race is HARD, never mind if the race itself only lasts 2 minutes. It’s not unknown for racehorses to just drop dead from cardiac problems after a tough race or training run.
Finally, bear in mind that a racehorse has no conscious understanding of training schedules, race calendars, injury management, conditioning maintenance, prize money, etc. If a horse is feeling fit and energetic then it likes to run fast, but don’t expect it to understand the mechanics of horse racing as a sport or to be able to talk with its trainer or jockey about an optimum training regimen. It makes sense to me that racehorse trainers and owners would want to err on the side of caution when planning recovery periods between big races.