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Originally Posted by Cajungator26
Well obviously, Jessica... I'm not a complete idiot. How about this... as the two of them were coming around the far turn and thundering down the stretch, neither one of them looked sore or appeared to be hitting the ground any harder than the rest of the field and the rest of the horses that ran all day at Tampa. In fact, the only horse that was even in the same ball park as those two in the warm-up was that grey gelding, Delightful Kiss (who finished 3rd, no surprise there.)
Have you seen these horses in the flesh? Are you willing to admit that you can't tell a lot without having been around them?
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I am judging each individual horse's movement. I'm comparing them to an ideal. Delightful Kiss is a much better moving horse than either one of those horses even though he isn't nearly as fast as them. And I completely disagree with you about neither one of them looking sore as they were thundering down the stretch. It isn't just about how hard that they are hitting the ground either. It is how they are moving...length of stride, suspension phase, power, knee action, rhythm...etc. etc.
I have seen Street Sense in the flesh, but not recently. I haven't seen Any Given Saturday in the flesh. I can tell an enourmous amount about a horse by watching videos of the horses without even being around them. It ties into why they make videos of the horses at the two year old sales. It also ties into being a handicapper. I get more from watching the horses on the videos than I get from watching them in real life. However, I also can tell a lot about the way a horse is traveling in real life, as well as on video. For example, it is pretty easy for me to tell if a horse is sore when I am watching them work on the track in the mornings. However, I do much better at judging their actual movement (like length of stride and power) from a video when they are breezing or galloping just because my eyesight isn't that great and their legs look like a blur to me. For example, when I am watching a two year old on video, I often times pause or put the tape in slow motion to see if the horse is cross-firing, how smoothly the horse switches leads, how far the horse is getting his front legs out in front of him, how long the suspension phase is, how hard they hit the ground, how far they are getting their hocks up underneath them...etc.