Stride Efficiency At The 4.5F

Check out the saddle cloth. For we oldsters, Thirty Six Red circa 1990, Mike Smith on board apparently after a big win.

Tom Ivers used to go nuts when the rider prior to M. Smith was riding Thirty Six Red on the front end of the Kentucky Derby on an utterly loose rein. By Ivers riders using a loose rein (rein with slack--and with 36 Red it was complete slack--never seen another rider do that since) violates the principle of stride efficiency which, according to Ivers was got by "rounding on the bit".

"Rounding on the bit". Sounds good. Is that what happens? At this point of our hypothetical two minute gallop--5f to 5f--rider and horse have passed the starting point of the 5f and approach the 4.5f.

Rider's mental state at this point on the race track was discussed last post. This post discuss bit work and rein work and their role in controlling the horse in terms of direction, speed and possibly most importantly stride efficiency.

Let's presume that each horse has an optimum stride where the horse's bounding (or pounding, as the case may be) mechanics are as good as they're going to get. For each horse, reaching this optimal state of movement will mean maximum speed over distance as well as maximum energy conservation within the speed parameters. Horse racing is bounding weight around the race track. The farther off from optimum stride efficiency the horse is, the less competitive the horse will be for reasons logical and obvious.

And, the farther the horse travels the more important stride efficiency. Stride efficiency is more important in routes than sprints and hence, in your choice of jocks whereas in a sprint you may look for a highly aggressive rider, in a route might be wise to consider the one that gets a stride on his horse. You can spot these boys and their styles by sight.

For the owner/trainer then, how is stride efficiency got. Is it got in the morning, by practice, is it merely a function of rider skill, or something else? Was 36 Red necessarily inefficient because he was running on a lose rein?

My own experience with this--I have been riding steadily since 1999--is that every time I get on a horse I am mindful of stride efficiency and used to be mindful of Iver's concept of "rounding on the bit". Try to explain this next post.
Training:
Wed. 11/16: Riderless with some nice spurts.
Thurs. 11/17: Off. Rider/trainer unavailable.
Fri. 11/18: Major wind event. Had to go riderless. Some short spurts.