| TRAINING |
FAC TO RS FOR RACING ABILI TY AND SUS TA I NAB ILI T Y Judy Wardrope
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Eclipse Sportswire, Judy Wardrope
veryone wants to be able to pick a future star on the track, ideally, one that can compete at the stakes level for several seasons. In order to increase the probability of finding such a gem, many buyers and agents look at the pedigree of a horse and the abilities displayed by its relatives, but that is not always an accurate predictor of future success. When looking at a potential racehorse, the mechanical aspects of its conformation usually override the lineage, unless of course, the conformation actually matches the pedigree.
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TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM ISSUE 55
For our purposes, we will examine three horses at the end of their three-year-old campaigns and one at the end of her fourth year. In order to provide the best educational value, these four horses were chosen because they offer a reasonable measure of success or failure on the track, have attractive pedigrees and were all offered for sale as racing prospects in a November mixed sale. The fillies were also offered as broodmare prospects. Is it possible to tell which ones were the better racehorses and predict the best distances for those who were successful? Do their race records match their pedigrees? Let’s see.