Understanding Timed Workouts - Arabians

Original article written by Regina Moore posted 9 years 0 weeks ago

Arabians only have two racing distance categories – sprints (4f,5f,6f) and routes (1-1/4 miles, 1-1/2 miles, 2 miles). Bizarrely, there’s three workout categories – 4f, 5f, and 6f. So, if 4f is intended for sprinters and 6f is intended for routers, than what is a 5f workout intended for? Obviously, I’m not the only player puzzled by the availability of 5f workouts, because very few players use that distance.

I’ve often wondered if horses that excel at 5f timed works might point to dual-distance horses. But in actuality, it’s the routers that clock the fastest 5f workout times. So, perhaps, the 5f time is intended for the 1-1/4 mile to 1-1/2 mile horses, while the 6f workout time points to horses that are best at 1-1/2 to two miles? Even if the latter is so, it’s not particularly helpful, because one doesn’t often have a choice between distances when race shopping. (Since Arabians don’t start racing until age 3, they are the least popular breed, and therefore there’s not a whole lot of races to choose from.)

I’ve heard it said that Arabian workout times tend to be more prone to being bloodline-dependent than other breeds, in that some bloodlines tend to work pokey, while others work fast, regardless of the actual quality of the individual horse. If so, this might dovetail with the idea of more precocious horses having faster workouts versus horses that won’t show their best until later in their careers having slower workouts. I have seen some pretty strong evidence of the idea of certain bloodlines working faster, but when you consider that the breed as a whole has a smaller population than other breeds, then it follows that polarities are going to stand out all the more sharply. So, I can’t say conclusively that it’s a trait unique to the Arabian breed.

As a broad, generalized observation, the routers tend to be more consistent, in that wow horses are going to work faster than wings, which are going to work faster than htt, etc. The faster working horses can then sometimes go on to be the better racehorses. With sprinters, it’s not always the best gallopers that clock the fastest times in workouts, and the fastest in timed workouts usually aren’t the better racehorses.

All in all, I don’t think workout times are very helpful in pointing to the best horses in any particular Arabian crop.

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