It seems we’re always talking about class, both in the sim and in real life. It’s obviously a difficult thing to define, in part because there are so many ways to look at it.<\/p>\n
Will to win:<\/b> Most horsemen in the racing game will agree, that the will to win is a big part of class. A horse that quits when challenged may do quite a bit of winning if it finds races well within its ability, but be an utter failure racing against horses that are equally as fast but have a bit more interest in winning. <\/p>\n
Ability to run fast:<\/b> Very few horsemen will argue with this aspect of class, either. No matter how badly a horse may want<\/i> to run competitively, if it lacks the speed to keep up with the field, it’s not going to win. It’s not from lack of trying, it’s from lack of ability. You could say these horses have a “classy attitude,” but just aren’t able to back it up. You’ll break their hearts if they continue to be overmatched. <\/p>\n
Level of competition:<\/b> This has to have something to do with it, doesn’t it? Enormously talented racehorses who are able to race at the highest levels obviously have at least a touch of class. Without the perhaps more subtle aspect of desire to win, though, they can be in-and-outers…you just can’t predict when they’ll have a good race or a bad race. <\/p>\n
There are probably other aspects that figure in as well. How about intelligence? A horse that hasn’t the sense to at least at times allow the rider to guide it out of trouble probably will having some difficulty winning. Or temperament? Horses that aggressively want to win to the point where they’ll voluntarily interfere with another horse may finish first, but they’ll get disqualified. <\/p>\n
For the sim, we need to think of class as changeable. There are many older sim horses (just as there are in real life) who used to be highly competitive in stakes races, but can now be found in claiming races. They have “dropped in class.” Does this make them<\/i> any less classy? Not to my way of thinking – if they’re still “trying” to compete and give it their best, even if their best has declined, they can still be very worthwhile claims. We call that “back class.” <\/p>\n
In real life, claiming races came into to being originally as a way of “leveling the playing field,” giving all horses a chance of winning and to prevent someone with an exceptionally talented horse from entering against easier competition all the time – at least, not without consequences. “Fine, you want to enter? Then anyone else can buy your horse for $X.” <\/p>\n
Can you guarantee class by pedigree? It can help…a little, but there are absolutely no guarantees. I was watching live horse racing on television today, and at Presque Isle Downs, the topic came up: There was a son of Fusaichi Pegasus out of a Secretariat mare, sold for $200,000 (in REAL money, LOL!) as a yearling running in a $7500 maiden claimer. <\/p>\n
Do I have a point here? Maybe not – I’m aware I have a tendency to think out loud and\/or just ramble on. If there is<\/b> a point, it would probably be “run them where they’re able to compete, no matter how pretty the pedigree” and “don’t assume that sheer speed = class, because it’s only one aspect of it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are a lot of ways to look at class<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6441\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}