Quantifying greatness heavily dependent on the driver
HORSE RACING: Several factors at work in determining a winner
Posted By SCOTT ROWE
Posted 4 months ago
I have a close friend who loves horse racing. Although he has never driven in a race or actually trained in race-like conditions, he's still an astute observer and an excellent judge of horses and their drivers.
My friend is also a reasonably successful handicapper, no doubt due to his phenomenal memory of past race performances and being blessed with an analytically capable brain to sort through the mounds of data provided in a racing form.
When choosing his favourite bet, he attaches a huge amount of importance to the capability of the driver, and holds the top competitors in the sport in an almost religious awe. To hear my friend talk about the talents of a Jodie Jamison or a John Campbell or a Tim Tetrick is akin to listening to a hockey fan extol the virtues of a Wayne Gretzky or Mario Lemieux.
In harness horse racing, there are superstars, like in any sport, who seem to have an incredible natural gift to guide 1,500-pound animals at maximum speeds through potentially dangerous conditions of tight quarters for high-pressured financial rewards. Amazingly, the best drivers accomplish this in a way that makes it look as deceptively easy as sitting in a favourite living room chair while, at the same time, getting the most out of their mounts.
I am reminded that the great advances in modern physics are based on observations of predictability. At the atomic scale, it is impossible to actually see the electrons or the muons, or the quarks, or the many other minute particles that physicists have given strange names to, but it is possible to mathematically predict some of their behaviour and see the results.
In horse racing, it is similarly impossible to quantify just what makes a great driver, but it is certainly observable. Although, to my knowledge, no one has compared the DNA of any super teamsters, I am sure they are just like you or I. There are no 'driving distillation' or 'jockey injectable' that one can take to be better, you can't breed a Keith Waples from parents with outstanding horsemanship, and reading all the books in the world on racing will not make an outstanding driver.
Other equine disciplines have tried to describe what it is takes to achieve truly great horsemanship. Whether racing around barrels, jumping over barriers, flying down a dirt track or doing intricate manoeuvres in the show ring, it would seem that the common denominator is being in control.
Zen practitioners might say it is becoming 'one with the horse'. When a horse successfully meshes with its rider, it is obviously the blending of two distinct living personalities, each with its own unique mind. They seem to come together to work in a state of mutual respect.
The sport of horse dressage is considered the basis of all types of horsemanship. Dressage requires horse and rider to perform certain extremely controlled gaits and movements while being judged on how fluid and rhythmic the two can change from one test into the next.
The great Hungarian Olympic dressage rider, Charles De Kunffy, once said: "The horse knows how to be a horse if we will leave him alone ... but the riders don't know how to ride. What we should be doing is creating riders and that takes care of the horse immediately."
Scott Rowe is former chairman of the board at Georgian Downs.
