Is horse racing an athletic event?

[Pirata]

Is this relevant to being an athlete? Is this the best you can come up with? I agree you need to be in good shape, but unless youre physically moving (not a machine) then you cant count as an athlete. Or put a qualifier like "motor sport athlete" . Unless you play a sport with your balls its irrelevant.

Shu: Here a piece worth reading about elite drivers. http://www.roadandtrack.com/motorsports/news/a18270/you-think-driving-an-indy-car-is-easy/

When mentioning the 190 mph left turn, perhaps I should have also added strength, reflexes, speed/space judgment, and concentration.

We look at weight lifters and call them athletes. I don;t see them moving too much. If I wanted to be cynical I could say they just stand there and bend over to pick up something heavy. Clearly, it takes more than that.

BTW, "balls" was an expression to denote courage;, kinda like saying "guts". I know of no sport that is actually played with testicles.

 

[Pirata]

The fact that an activity requires hand-eye coordination doesn't make it a sport. Nor does competing against someone else. Is playing video games a sport? If so, then I was a great athlete during my Pac Man days.

You are mixing the terms sport and athlete.

There is no basis to support the logic, "I play a sport, therefore I am an athlete". or conversely, "my activity requires athleticism, therefore my activity is a sport"

Regarding video games, they are being referred to now as eSports. That seems like a reasonable asterisk to properly describe it. It has competition, rules, requires practice, hand/eye coordination, strategy, etc. Other than mental stamina, it does lack the physical component.

 

[Pirata]

I been watching the Netflix series "Formula 1 - Drive to Survive"

They are clearly athletes competing in a sport.

F1 Driver Workout Regime | F1 News

Many believe driving in Formula 1 is as easy as driving a regular racing car. Most people are unaware of the physical effort necessary to compete in Formula

f1chronicle.com

 

[Piratz]

Amazing, an 8-year thread. 🤣

 

[Pirata]

Gotta love the search function.

Plus it's the off season.

 

[rdefabri]

I been watching the Netflix series "Formula 1 - Drive to Survive"

They are clearly athletes competing in a sport.

F1 Driver Workout Regime

Many believe driving in Formula 1 is as easy as driving a regular racing car. Most people are unaware of the physical effort necessary to compete in Formula One

f1chronicle.com

I was a competitive bodybuilder, a competitive Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner, and a (not so competitive) wrestler.

I also hold an SCCA racing license, and I can assure anyone that the physical aspect of racing is very real. Remember you are driving a bare bones car, stripped of anything from a comfort perspective, particularly power steering and brakes. With wide tires, even at high speeds, the effort needed to turn the car is considerable. Braking requires a significant amount of pressure, and you are repeating this lap after lap.

Suffice to say that the week it took to obtain my license, I was sore. I was bathed in sweat after every practice run. It's high intensity, physical work - much, much more difficult than it looks.

I would personally call a race car driver an athlete. FWIW.

 

[Halldan1]

Well, if horse racing is an athletic event then this might be the greatest athlete of all time.

 

[Halldan1]

 

[SHUisNJsTeam]

Horse racing is certainly an athletic event. However, poker, which they do cover on sports channels, certainly is not!

 

[cams555]

Horse racing is totally a sport. I worked at Monmouth Park for 10 years and I used to see the jockeys working out early every morning with trash bags and sweats on trying to cut weight running around the track. Not only do they have to make weight but it take a lot of hand and leg strength to maneuver a horse that is that strong and fast.

 

[Hall-O-Daze]

I know The Joker races horses in Serbia, and he and his teammates are the reigning NBA champions. So i guess it could count. I mean, the guy won 2 MVP’s, and should have won a third this season until there was a BS movement to take it from him and officially give it to a human disappearing act.

 

[chickenbox]

It's impossible to debate whether something does or does not qualify as a something without first agreeing precisely on that which constitutes a something

Or something

Quoting myself from eight years ago. As true now as then.

 

[HALL85]

I consider Golf an athletic event, but anytime I do get to play (which isn't often), I end up probably drinking about 4 beers over the course of a round of golf and can still a manage a relatively respectable score.

Point being; what kind of sport allows you to drink booze and smoke stogies as needed?

You may want to Google Doc Ellis…

 

[Pirata]

There's a big difference between you going out with your buddies for a casual round and the PGA tour.

There's lots of sports where people drink like bowling, skiing, fishing, softball, baseball. For those people, it's casual entertainment as opposed to the pro bowlers tour or major League baseball.

 

[HallX2]

The other horse racing thread on the site entertains the question about horse racing being an athletic event and if jockeys or even horses are athletes.

Reminds me of the many debates I have had in the past about golfers and bowlers being considered athletes.

What say you?

Most certainly for the horse

 

[Halldan1]

Secretariat’s Heart Size: Inside the Tremendous Machine​

June 16, 2017 8:02am

The analogy, of course, it that Secretariat’s power came from within, as well. He had the breeding to be a great race horse, but he also had something that made him more powerful and unique. His heart was more than twice the size of an average horse.

In Pure Heart, originally published in the June 4, 1990 issue of Sports Illustrated, Bill Nack reports the words of Dr. Thomas Swerczek, who performed the necropsy that discovered just how big Secretariat’s heart was.

While Secretariat’s heart was buried with him, Audi’s depiction compared to the average horse helps provide an idea of how big the champion’s heart really was.

Secretariat’s heart was estimated to be a whopping 22 pounds. The possible secret behind the enormous size is the X Factor, a term coined by Marianna Haun. In Haun took the ‘X Factor’ to the nth degree, Mark Simon of The Daily Racing Form, remembers Haun and her dedication to this theory:

“Marianna had learned that Secretariat had an unusually large heart – estimated at 22 pounds, while the average Thoroughbred heart is 8.5 pounds. This tremendous cardiovascular system, pumping oxygen into his lungs at an abnormally high rate, was clearly a source of his stamina and power. Though Marianna did not possess a scientific background she wondered if it was genetic, and began looking into it – learning that Australian researchers had studied heart size 40 years earlier and had concluded it was passed along the X chromosome. But their research never gained traction here and they never linked it to specific horses in North America.

In February 1994, she wrote a piece for Thoroughbred Times entitled The X Factor, which suggested that the large heart traces to a single mare, Pocahontas, born in England in 1837, heralding back to the great sire Eclipse. The article went into detail on the theory, examining all available research to that time, and why it was so important to the breeding world. It was a very good article.”

Hit link for more

Secretariat’s Heart Size: Inside the Tremendous Machine

Secretariat’s heart size still remains a wonder of the racing world, and the power of it prompted Audi to use it in a commercial.

www.horseracingnation.com