The Triple Crown wouldn’t be the Triple Crown if all the races were the same distance. That’s partially why there are so few Triple Crown winners. Many horses could repeatedly win 3 times, on the same track, at the same distance.
Horses and humans often excel at specific distances. How many humans can win the 100m, 200m, and 400m sprints against the best sprinters available and do it within a two or three month timeframe?
Very common because tracks that are open in mid-May tend to be some of the nicest ones on any particular “circuit”, and can attract families.
I think making the Triple Crown open to all ages would kill its appeal. Part of the mystique is that you only get one chance at the Triple Crown races.
There are definitely several top-level horses that race for several years. Zenyatta won her first 19 races while racing up to the age of six. Good geldings (neutered male horses) can run for years as they have no career at stud ahead of them.
To beat horse racing is very, very tough, as you do indeed have to beat the “takeout”, the amount the track takes from each bet before paying the rest to those who have winning bets. This ranges from 15-25%, depending on the state and the type of bet. On the other hand, if you win too much you won’t have angry horse owners barring you from the track.
I’ve been to 51 tracks. My favorite is probably Keeneland Race Course in Lexington. It’s in the middle of horse farm country, is a lovely facility, and has great quality racing.
A good jockey’s biggest difference is that they are less likely to screw up a ride; success or failure in a race depends on split-second decisions, and usually the best rides are only apparent when you watch a replay, and see the trouble a horse could have had, but didn’t.
Here’s a link to “Night School”. You can click through "Completed Events; there are a LOT of pages, and find a subject you like. Sorry, the site has no direct links.
Well at Saratoga you won’t get anyone on Tuesdays because they don’t run that day. But more to the point, I was amazed the first time I went to Saratoga. Families everywhere, coolers full of food and alcohol everywhere, and the whole atmosphere in general was simply not what I expected. And when I mentioned this to coworkers who had grown up in the area they all thought I was the crazy one.
I’m curious as to why horses are thought to need so much longer between races than humans.
Times in the Belmont Stakes (longest Triple Crown race) are around 2.5 minutes. A human in top shape could easily run a 2.5 minute race at fully competitive speed and then do the same thing the next day (and probably several days in a row). Whereas it seems a horse shouldn’t be expected to repeat such an effort even once per week.
If you look at the top line:
2/15/2010
8th Race at Laurel racetrack
track condition: fast
7 furlong race
How fast the race leader (not this horse, unless he was in front) ran the first 1/4-mile, the first 1/2-mile, the first 3/4-mile, and the entire race
Type of race - “3 up-arrow” means 3-year-olds and up; General George Handicap; “G2” means Grade 2 Stakes Race (the numbers followed by “k” mean that it was a claiming race where the horse could be claimed for that amount)
“Beyer Speed Figure” - this is an estimation of how well the horse did after making allowances for things like track condition and location
Post position
Place and distance behind the leader - depending on the distance of the race, the first number could be where the horse was right at the start, or at the first 1/4 mile; the superscript number indicates how far behind the leader he was; the number before the jockey’s name is where the horse finished
Jockey
If there is an L after the jockey’s name, the horse was on Lasix
Jockey weight
“b” after the weight means the horse was wearing blinkers; “f” means he was wearing front bandages
The horse’s odds to win (an asterisk means he was the favorite; an “e” means he was part of an entry)
Speed rating - 100 is the fastest time at that track/surface/distance in the past three years; every point is 1/5 second faster or slower; the number after the dash indicates how much below “normal” the races for that track/surface/distance were that day
Top three finishers in that race, with weight carried and distance in front of the horse immediately behind him
Comments about how the horse ran that race
Number of horses in the race
I’m not really a fan, so just a simple history question out of curiosity. Since the last Triple Crown winner…“Affirmed”, I think that’s what ESPN said it was…which horses have won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, and how did they finish at Belmont? And for that matter, what is it that makes a horse that’s so dominant in two races come up short or completely flame out in the third? I can understand being great at one type of race and flopping in another, but two?
I love Keeneland but unfortunately don’t usually travel to Ky. in April or October. I do have a question though. At Keeneland and some other tracks, almost every single seat has somebody’s name on the back of it. What do you have to do to get your name on the back of a seat at Keeneland? Can you sit there anyway?
Also, what do you think of the switch back to natural turf instead of the artificial stuff?
Because the breeding rights of the human isn’t worth tens of millions of dollars??? 
Have you attended any European racetracks, and what did you think of the racing there?
Who was your favorite racehorse ever?
From memory (not that tough a task, I was present for most of these):
1979 - Spectacular Bid, 3rd - He got a safety pin caught in his hoof the morning of the Belmont, plus his jockey moved him to challenge a hopeless longshot early. Probably the best horse to win the first two and lose the Belmont; he won all 9 races the following year and set several track records in doing so.
1981 - Pleasant Colony, 3rd - Improved a ton in the race before the Derby and appeared to be knocked out by the 3 huge efforts going into the Belmont.
1987 - Alysheba, 4th - Uncharacteristically showed speed and tired; the winner had finished a close 2nd in the first two legs so wasn’t a surprise; another horse who was dominant the next year.
1989 - Sunday Silence, 2nd - Had equally-talented archrival, Easy Goer, who loved racing at Belmont and ran the second-fastest Belmont ever that day. Had either of these two horses not had to face each other, they probably would have both won Triple Crowns.
1997- Silver Charm, 2nd - Happened to win the first two legs against a couple of closely matched rivals, and just got run down late by one of them here.
1998 - Real Quiet, 2nd - Just got beaten a nose by equally-talented rival who had finished second in the first two legs after opening up a lead coming out of the turn. By the way, if California Chrome loses tomorrow, I think this is the most likely scenario.
1999 - Charismatic, 3rd - Like Pleasant Colony, improved a ton 1 race before the Derby, and was overused in his 3 straight big efforts. Broke a leg very late in the race; finished anyway but was saved when his jockey jumped off just past the finish.
2002 - War Emblem, 8th? - Pure frontrunner who stumbled out of the gate and was immediately taken out of his game. There are quite a few horses with a front-running running style who quit when unable to reach the lead.
2003 - Funny Cide, 3rd - Was too keen for the race; had a very fast workout that week and tried to lead all the way; beaten by talented rivals, including the Derby favorite who had finished 2nd in that race.
2004 - Smarty Jones, 2nd - Beaten by race tactics. Hounded by two rivals in the early portions of the race and ran way too fast in the middle part of the race as a result; still opened a lead coming out of the turn but couldn’t hold off a fresh challenger who had stayed out of the early fray.
2008 - Big Brown, eased out of the race - Who knows? Take your pick of a) loosened a shoe on the first turn; b) went nuts in the “detention barn” where stakes horses must wait during the day while they are watched; or c) did not receive his monthly dose of (then-legal) steroids for the first time.
2012 - I’ll Have Another, scratched - Scratched the day before the Belmont (and retired) with a flareup of a chronic leg injury.
Many of those are owner’s boxes much like luxury boxes at ballgames; the owners paid for the rights to those seats. Some are for the governor, track president, etc. All the seats at Keeneland are reserved anyway, so either you can buy seats for the day, or know one of the boxholders.
The turf is staying the same, but the “polytrack” (artificial race surface that is water-resistant) they had used since 2006 will be replaced with regular dirt. I liked the polytrack because I had adjusted to the handicapping peculiarities of that surface (proven ability to handle that racing surface trumped every other factor), but I see their point that the Blue Grass Stakes, their major Kentucky Derby prep, had become increasingly irrelevant as trainers of horses who were proven on dirt stayed away from that race.
Is it true that horse racing betting is still the only form of gambling legal in all states? If so, why should that be? Why shouldn’t we treat it as any other kind of gambling?
What’s the deal with jockey shorts?
There is a school of thought that says that horse race betting is not exactly gambling.
Other forms of gambling involve pure chance: you cannot predict a dice throw, a slot machine outcome, a roulette number, or which lottery numbers will be picked. Each event is independent of the others (to believe otherwise means that one has fallen prey to the gambler’s fallacy). Other forms tend towards pure chance–to a degree, a skilled blackjack player can make a good guess at which kind of card will be picked out of a properly-shuffled deck (or six), and poker players exhibit skill. But in the end, each blackjack shoe is independent of the others; and each poker hand is dealt at random, independent of past hands.
In horse racing, however, each horse and each race is not necessarily independent of the other. Looking at the horse’s racing history, we can see that if a horse has run well under these conditions in the past, it is reasonable to assume that it will run well under these conditions in the future. Of course, what “these conditions” are can vary (distance, jockey, weight, etc.), but few who know what they are doing would back a proven sprinter in a route race, for example. It is true that favorites win about one-third of the time, but pure randomness, which is a large part of gambling, is not there in horse racing.
In the end, I’d guess that we don’t treat horse race betting like any other form of gambling, because lacking the element of random chance, it is unlike any other form of gambling.
Have you ever seen a tall jockey?
Nope, never went. I hear Longchamps is nice.
My boring answer: Secretariat. Of horses I’ve seen in person, Holy Bull (it helps that I’ve seen him 5 times in races and once at the farm).
I was more curious about the underwear brand’s connection to the sport of kings.