Jerry Brown's letter to TDN on HOY discussion

[Kasept]

Originally Posted by 2Hot4TV

1 pound and she didn't need it. I beleive RA got 6 or 9 pounds which she needed to hold on.

Is this a suggestion that as a 3 year old filly, Rachel Alexandra beating elder males is somehow diminished by the weight scale? The Woodward is WFA... weight for age, the international scale of equine competition. Elders are assigned 126 pounds; 3yo's 121; females get a 3# allowance. Hence, as a 3yo female, Rachel Alexandra carried 118 while the 7 elder males carried 126. This is the scale of weight. A three year old filly facing elder males, a challenge so outlandish that it more or less hadn't been done in this country in 100+ years, is entitled to the allowance.

Some clarity on Weight for Age:

Weight for Age (WFA) is a term in Thoroughbred horse racing which is one of the conditions for a race. It means that a horse will carry a set weight in accordance with the Weight for Age Scale. This weight varies depending on the horse’s age, its sex, the race distance and the month of the year. Weight for age races are usually Group 1 races, races of the highest quality.

WFA is a method of trying to equal out the physical progress which the average thoroughbred racehorse makes as it matures. The thoroughbred matures extremely quickly compared to the human being. By the age of two the horse has achieved 95% of its mature height and weight, and by the end of its third year it will be fully mature. To allow for this variation in maturity in the context of racing, it is necessary to express it as a function of the weight a horse will carry in a race. It is also necessary to take into account the race distance because stamina comes with maturity, and younger horses are at a greater disadvantage the further they have to run. If no allowance was made, a mature older horse would always beat a younger one.