By Robbie Butler
With the Aintree Racing Festival for 2025 about to commence and the Grand National - the most icon of all horse races - set to go to post on Saturday, I thought it timely to revisit a post of mine in 2017.
As I said in 2017 "I think most people would agree that the performance of sports teams and individuals has improved over time. One need only look at old footage of any sport, team based or individual, to witness how fitness, physique, athleticism, stamina and technique have all improved. This is in no way to dimisnish the greats of the past, who may have achieved the same results, or possibly even better, had they access to the same improvements in technology, coaching, and sports science, etc.
Improvements in individual sports are often easier to spot than team-based ones. This is because there is usually a world record time, distance, weight etc. This way it is easier to compare contestants through time. Remarkably, Jesse Owens' world record from 1936 is 0.04 short of today's Olympic qualifying time of 10.16 seconds."
Horse racing continunes to buck the trend focuing on the data below - the winning time of each race. While there has been a slight improvement on average through time - the trend appears to be downward, there has been effectively no improvement over the past quarter of a century.
With the Aintree Racing Festival for 2025 about to commence and the Grand National - the most icon of all horse races - set to go to post on Saturday, I thought it timely to revisit a post of mine in 2017.
As I said in 2017 "I think most people would agree that the performance of sports teams and individuals has improved over time. One need only look at old footage of any sport, team based or individual, to witness how fitness, physique, athleticism, stamina and technique have all improved. This is in no way to dimisnish the greats of the past, who may have achieved the same results, or possibly even better, had they access to the same improvements in technology, coaching, and sports science, etc.
Improvements in individual sports are often easier to spot than team-based ones. This is because there is usually a world record time, distance, weight etc. This way it is easier to compare contestants through time. Remarkably, Jesse Owens' world record from 1936 is 0.04 short of today's Olympic qualifying time of 10.16 seconds."
Horse racing continunes to buck the trend focuing on the data below - the winning time of each race. While there has been a slight improvement on average through time - the trend appears to be downward, there has been effectively no improvement over the past quarter of a century.
The record time remains that of Mr Frisk - the 1990 winner - winning the 4 mile 2.5 furlong race in 8 minutes 48 seconds. The 2024 winner I Am Maximus took 9 minutes and 24 seconds to complete the course which is now far easier to complete given the reduce fence size and smaller field.
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