SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
There are some good reasons it's been 37 years since the last triple-crown winner as Lexi Pandell wrote on June 3 that post-race recovery is no joke for a thousand-pound animal that can run more than 40 miles per hour. There are two weeks between the Derby and the Preakness, and three weeks between the Preakness and the Belmont. That tight schedule—and the super-specific needs of racehorses—means horses competing in the grueling back-to-back-to-back Triple Crown races have a big disadvantage against fresh horses. First, as a horse races, its muscles produce lactic acid. In humans, glycogen recoup takes about 24 hours. But horses take several days to process lactic acid and restore glycogen reserves. Trainers make sure their charges drink plenty of water and sometimes even use intravenous fluids to aid that repair process. Secondly, in addition to being the last race of the Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes is also the longest. That's no easy feat, even for a racehorse. When a horse runs a tough race (or has a new workout at a longer distance), its muscles break down. Then, during rest, they reknit and adapt. A horse that has skipped the Preakness, however, has the luxury of time. Mubtaahij, who some picked to win the Belmont, had plenty of rest so he could be pushed for hard workouts two weeks prior to the Belmont.
Finally, at different points in its stride, a galloping horse puts all its weight on a single leg. That limb bears three times more weight than usual when galloping on a straightaway and, thanks to centrifugal force, a load five to 10 times greater on turns. This translates to skeletal microdamage. Race a horse during that critical period and you increase the risk of serious injuries mid-race. Two weeks [seven years] ago, vets were forced to euthanize the promising gray thoroughbred filly, Eight Belles, when she collapsed on the track after completing the race at Churchill Downs, suffering from two shattered ankles in her front legs. A fresh horse won't face any of those problems. Even a horse that ran in the Derby but skipped the Preakness will have five weeks to rest, and plenty of time for normal skeletal damage to repair, before the Belmont. "So, American Pharoah [sic], it'd be awesome if you win the Triple Crown, but you probably won't," concluded Pandell. "It's not your fault. It's science and those pesky fresh horses." Science was wrong.
[Ed note: The proper spelling of the title for an ancient Egyptian king is "Pharaoh." This ABC News story American Pharoah Rides Misspelled Name to Brink of History notes the registered name for the horse is "American Pharoah" and provides some background on how that came to be.]
Original submission
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 07 2015, @10:24PM
You know that Soylent and /. don't really share editors, right? Are they supposed to go around reading all the comments of every news site that links an article before posting it?
Sure, the submission is far, far below HP's standards, but it's the weekend, submissions are sparse, and at least it's something—Soylent need the clicks to get those ad moneys!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 07 2015, @10:27PM
Sure, the submission is far, far below HP's standards
Yeah, it's like a shriveled-up, white dog turd vs a wet, fresh dog turd.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 07 2015, @10:30PM
It's a fucking Hugh Pickens submission. The editors here should know full well that if it's ending up on the front page here, then it was surely on the front page of /. yesterday. Even if they don't read every /. story, they should know that in a case like this, where Hugh Pickens is involved, that they should see how it was received at /., and consider that when putting it on the front page here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2015, @01:00PM
I haven't been to Slashdot in a long time. I sporadically contribute story submissions to this site. I don't give a rat's ass if the story appeared or not over there, or anywhere else for that matter. I only care if it appeared here because I don't want to submit duplicate articles. I don't expect the editors here to vet submissions against Slashdot or anywhere else.
(Score: 2) by sudo rm -rf on Monday June 08 2015, @02:29PM
I don't give a rat's ass if the story appeared or not over there, or anywhere else for that matter.
I absolutely agree. And I'd like to add that Hugh Picken's seems to cover a lot of stories from different backgrounds and interests. This is why I find them valuable additions to this site.
(Score: 2) by Lunix Nutcase on Sunday June 07 2015, @11:20PM
Hugh Pickens has standards for his submissions? Since when?