What is it about?
Sports science and training metrics inform athletes on their progression toward a competitive goal. New technology now enables such data to be collected during race-pace training efforts in racehorses. Few studies have reported outcomes such as race-day performance. Here, fitness trackers recorded race-pace training efforts of 485 racehorses over 3418 training sessions at a single yard in Australia. Colts and ‘stayers’, generally performed better than fillies. Certain aspects of ‘fitness’ as recorded during training did associate/predict better race performance, but the effect sizes were relatively small; for example, higher speed over the last 600m of a standardised timed-trial in training did predict (P = 0.04) those horses that performed better in races.
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Why is it important?
Combining training metrics with less tangible, experiential factors from racehorse trainers or other personnel will help aid decision-making on placing horses in races and potentially reduce the incidence of poor performance on race-day
Perspectives
The study demonstrates that in-training racehorse physiological data contributes, to some extent, to performance prediction in racehorses. Of all aspects tested, there was a slight indication that the finish speed was predictive of race performance. Such a hybrid approach using data along with experience may contribute to a better selection of horses in suitable races and improve overall health and welfare on the track.
Professor David S Gardner
University of Nottingham
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Cardiovascular Fitness and Stride Acceleration in Race-Pace Workouts for the Prediction of Performance in Thoroughbreds, Animals, April 2024, MDPI AG,
DOI: 10.3390/ani14091342.
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