Monday, September 24, 2012

Males invariably faster than females in state-bred stakes

One pattern I notice, which is purely an observation, and of a type that could well be dead wrong, is that males really outperform females when two divisions of "little" stakes," or state-bred stakes are run. I'm talking time-wise; for instance, it's not the best example because Palmy Bay won by 12 1/4, but he won the Louisiana Stallion on Saturday in 1:23.94, while I Dare U Em required 1:25.25 in the fillies' division. I generally see large differences between males and females in these lower-division races, while the sexes seem more closely matched at the graded stakes level.

If anything, I would have guessed the trend would be opposite -- that when you're talking about a Louisiana Stallion race, the quality of the winner from year to year is likely to vary greatly, and the same would apply with the quality from one division to the next. So times for the sexes would cross quite a bit. When you're looking at the past performances for state-bred stakes, particularly in states that don't produce many serious race horses, there's a decided lack of depth. If that lack of depth permeates the top, which it sometimes does, then you can get some really dreadful races. Quality would seem to matter more than sex. But this doesn't seem to play out; I think males or well ahead of females in small-time racing.

Trying to figure out why is completely perplexing. Is the style of training less fancy horses, maybe of working them somewhat hard, more effective with males? This is about the best I can come up with.

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