Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Deadspin- American Pharaoh Versus Secretariat ?

This Is What It Would Look Like If American Pharoah Raced Secretariat

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Filed to: HORSE RACING 6/08/15 11:16pm

This Is What It Would Look Like If American Pharoah Raced Secretariat

The Wall Street Journal has put together a cool split screen video comparing American Pharoah’s Triple Crown winning Belmont race to Secretariat’s historic Belmont victory in 1973.

One of our favorite things to do in sports is to speculate about how current greats would have fared against past ones, or vice versa. But as the video shows, American Pharoah would be no match for Secretariat.

[Wall Street Journal]

E-mail or gchat the author: kevin.draper@deadspin.com | PGP key + fingerprint

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Kevin Draper’s Discussions

Dogger1972
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Dogger1972Kevin Draper
6/08/15 11:26pm
Watching Sham, a tremendous horse who would have been a triple crown contender any other year, in the Belmont is amazing. He ran with Secretariat for half the race, and got beat by 50 lengths. That is what happens to a normal horse when it tries to run at that pace for a mile and a half.

I love American Pharoah, but we will all be in the cold hard ground before we see the likes of Secretariat again.

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falafel
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falafelKevin Draper
6/08/15 11:36pm
Wow... I'm actually really amazed by this... Can someone who knows anything about horse racing please explain

I would have assumed that advances in doping would have translated to this sport as well given how much money exchanges hands in it

If you compared 100m times or cycling times five decades ago, the human times have gotten so so so much faster. Why haven’t horses?

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- max_plays_music
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  max_plays_musicfalafel
  6/08/15 11:44pm
  
  It’s not the tech, Secretariat was a genetic freak and was put on Earth for one reason, to go fast. Secretariat is the outlier not the norm. He had a enlarged heart ,norm 8 lbs his 22 lbs.
  
  http://www.sport-horse-breeder.com/large-heart.ht...
  
  16 197 Reply
- hobbesmk2
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  hobbesmk2falafel
  6/09/15 12:50am
  
  They have, on average. Look the footage again. American Pharaoh runs two seconds behind Secretariat. Slower, but not crazy slower. Certainly not slower than Secretariat’s competitors. But American Pharaoh’s competitors are faster too.
  
  Every horse running against Secretariat loses by nearly a quarter of the track. He takes off and shakes all but one competitor less than a 1/4 mile into the race. He leads that competitor by a length by the 1/2 mile mark.
  
  But the horses running against American Pharaoh hold their pace against him until the last furlong. You can see Frosted’s attempt to slip ahead of him, trying to come outside and put the power on, prompting American Pharaoh’s own power run in response.
  
  Sometimes, no matter what era, there are things that simply defy all-time. Ty Cobb, for instance, still holds some pretty impressive records, and held a bunch more well over 37 years after he retired that have subsequently been broken. Doesn’t matter how much junk you inject into A-Rod’s buttocks, you still don’t get a Ty Cobb out of it. He was some ballplayer. Likewise, Secretariat is, to put it succinctly, “some horse.”
  
  26 127 Reply
Captain Gladys Stoatpamphlet
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Captain Gladys StoatpamphletKevin Draper
6/08/15 11:38pm
At last, video evidence that 2:24 is faster than 2:26.

31 1017 Reply
ElephanTitus Andronicus
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ElephanTitus AndronicusKevin Draper
6/08/15 11:38pm
Black screen, white letters? I’m so confused. I think just watched the weirdest Woody Allen film since What’s Up, Tiger Lily?

Yep. It’s a font joke. And, yep, it’s incorrect. Allen uses Windsor and the WSJ uses Escrow.

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