RECEIVED wisdom, among both scientists and breeders, is that a modern, thoroughbred racehorse runs about as fast as it is possible for anything horse-shaped to run. Examinations of historical records, conducted over the past few years, have concluded that winning times have stagnated. Undermining received wisdom, though, is one of the most enjoyable pursuits in science. And, in a paper just published in Biology Letters, Patrick Sharman and Alastair Wilson of the University of Exeter, in England, have done just that.
Those previous studies of equine velocity focused on results from the winners of a small number of elite races. Mr Sharman and Dr Wilson used two much bigger sets of data—one covering 2,243 races run in Britain between 1850 and 1996 and the other more than 50,000 races held (also in Britain) between 1997 and 2012.
In all, they looked at 616,084 times set by 70,388 horses. They found that, contrary to received wisdom, the average speed of racehorses has continued to increase—with a particularly rapid improvement after 1975. At the top of the sport, in elite competitions such as Royal Ascot, the picture is more complicated. Over middle distances (8-12 furlongs, a furlong being just over 200 metres) and long ones (14-20 furlongs) Mr Sharman and Dr Wilson found that winning times had indeed stagnated in recent decades....
from The Economist: Science and technology http://ift.tt/1GKiJ7C
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