Have race horses gotten faster over the decades?

[raccoon]

I just finished reading a Rita Mae Brown mystery that dealt with race horses.

Seems to me that selective breeding would result in the horses getting progressively faster.

Anybody know?

[Turbineguy]

1. Whisky's gettin' older...

I'm not going anywhere near the third one.

[LakeSamish706]

2. I think that they have race horses on steroids now adays. n/t

[Earth_First]

3. Perhaps a Congressional investigation is in order!

A Blue Ribbon Panel to end ALL Blue Ribbon Panels of the past!

[GoesTo11]

4. A little

I just looked up the Kentucky Derby. The 1931 winning time would have won in 2005 & 2006. Certainly not true of human runners. Overall, average winning times seem to have dropped by a couple of seconds.

I think they can only do so much w/breeding because the physics of how the speed strains the body. Make the horses any lighter and or any faster and they break (like poor Barbarro).

[JoDog]

5. Correct

Unlike human runners, racehorses have not been getting progressively faster over the decades. For instance, the record time set in the Kentucky Derby in 1973 remains untouched.

The problem of selective breeding for speed is that it leads to inbreeding. The results of such inbreeding can be seen in some race horses of today--more fragile bones, lung prone to bleeding, shortened careers, etc. Thus, the search for speed becomes its own worst enemy. I am beginning to wonder if any true speedballs that come along may be the result of a mutation, not selective breeding.