Any links on this page that lead to products on Amazon are affiliate links and I earn a commission if you make a purchase. Thanks in advance — I really appreciate it! But what made him so famous? Was Secretariat the fastest horse ever? Secretariat set speed records at multiple distances and on different racing surfaces.
Secretariat is the greatest racehorse of all time; he annihilated his opponents and shattered course records. Secretariat was fast enough to win the triple crown at record speed in each race. He could run off the pace or go wire to wire. And he could also win on any surface and any distance. His versatility and speed are why many racing fans consider him the greatest racehorse of all-time.
His accomplishments in these prestigious races still have not been matched. To read about the fastest horses in the world, click here. In both races his best effort was to take 52 in the Arkansas Derby and 53 in the Kentucky Derby, which works out at 7.
It was interesting that he never seemed to reach what I now know to be his peak average stride length in the Kentucky Derby. Maybe something was bugging him that day. So here is where it gets really interesting. In the Belmont Stakes American Pharoah completed his final quarter in His final half was done in You can watch the video below and count if you want. So how does that compare to his competitors on the day?
According to Trakus data and measuring off the video, Frosted did the last half mile in That gives him an average peak stride length of 7. Keen Ice, who actually ran the second fastest average speed throughout the race of Honor Code who impressively won the Metropolitan Mile G1 on the same day took It is interesting to see that a horse like Secretariat How is this possible?
Setting aside the track differences, which would play a part, it is a matter of turnover. As fluid a stride that American Pharoah has, and it is something of beauty, he doesn't break 23 seconds for a quarter in his races.
He never has and he never will. His fastest furlong has been This means that he is fairly consistent in his stride parameters and generally just grinds horses into the ground with a longer average stride combined with a great cardio and genetics no doubt! He has the perfect parameters for the modern American thoroughbred.
Secretariat on the other hand was able to break 23 seconds, and did so in the Belmont itself. Secretariat had a shorter stride, but could turn them over quickly and keep doing it resulting in him taking closer to 2. So the really good horses will generally have an average stride length of feet and be able to tun these long strides over efficiently at a fast speed. But these are good horses. By my own count, Secretariat had a 25 foot 4 inch stride during the final furlong and a half of the Marlboro Cup, while his stablemate Riva Ridge had a 23 foot stride and finished second.
That changed, though, in , when a company called Total Performance Data, in partnership with Equibase , began counting the strides and tracking the distance covered by every horse at selected racetracks in the U.
Thanks to Total Performance Data, we now have data on millions of strides by thousands of horses — not just a few strides by champions in top races. Here, for example, are the average stride lengths for each half furlong of the Preakness Stakes — not just for the winner, Justify , but for all eight starters.
His stride reached 26 feet during the second furlong, settled to just over 25 feet through the middle half of the race, and then shortened through the last two furlongs, reaching 23 feet near the end.
Another horse, Tenfold , had a longer stride — nearly 27 feet — for half a furlong early in the race. What a horse needs for victory is not stride length, but a winning combination of stride length and stride frequency. The reason Justify beat Sporting Chance was that Justify had a higher stride frequency, 2.
Aside from Sporting Chance, Justify had the slowest stride frequency in the field. He beat most of his quicker-striding competitors because of his greater stride length. Stride length and stride frequency have a negative correlation. Long strides are rarely quick, and quick strides are rarely long. So a long-striding horse like Justify can win, but only if its strides are not too slow.
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