Do horses know how long a race is?
 

Having seen races where horses just barely do what it takes to win or where horses go from stalking to passing the others without being asked, I am wondering to what extent they know how long the race is. Do they know exactly where the wire is?

Also, what exactly does a jockey do when he "asks" his horse?

Good Questions.
 

Good questions.

Let me answer the last one first.

1. What does a jockey do when he "asks" his horse?

Approximately 3 furlongs from the wire, he lowers his body and "chirps" in the horses ear hoping the horse will respond with continued run.

2. Does a horse know how long a race is?

Most will say probably not. I'm going to say that horses are smarter than we think. If they are accustomed to a track there is a good possibility that they have an idea from the gate positioning how far they are going and where they will be asked to try harder. But I'm not going to argue about it.

My take is that, if a horse knew how long a race was, it would mean that with time and repetition, the horse would adjust its energy expenditure while running without prompting, and jockeys would just be passengers. I think it's in a horse's nature to run as fast as it can for as long as it can (however far that might be), and it's the jockey's role to regulate that impulse so that the horse has enough energy throughout the distance of the specific race to maximize its winning chances against whatever degree of competition it is facing. As reflected by long-term performance statistics, some jockeys are consistently better than others at achieving that. But, sometimes or even often, the comparative condition of the horse will not allow the horse to last the distance of the race, no matter how skilled the jockey.

This is when the jockey starts swearing at his mount. This is because he has strangled the horse all the way around the track, and now the horse has nothing to give. :D

So true with everyday horses!

Horses are much more intelligent than people realize. Most can figure out that the race is done about a quarter mile past where the ass whipping starts.

jdl

Greyfox and overlay gave you great answers... I can only add that horses are creatures of habit, and they also take in everything around them and get familiar with it...they know where certain things are, many times if you add something to the familiar surroundings of a horse, they will notice it immidiately, they can recognize people and other animals as familiar or strange/new...and these types of inbred natural insincts play a part in their knowing where (approximately) the wire is.

I seen many times, a horse dump the jockey out of the gate, and then run an almost perfect race: settle in back (takes time to dump the jockey), make a move from the back-of-the-pack at the right time, get into contention at the top of the stretch, but then they always go wide in the stretch :( . These are always experienced horses. I assume they know at least where the finish line is.

Good point...but some of that, a loose horse staying in the race, is his natural instinct to stay with the herd.
:)

I think you have to look at 'intelligent' horses as associative animals. Meaning, they don't necessarily know where they are at on the track in the sense that riders or spectators do, but that they are able to associate certain stimulus to form a conclusion that gives the impression that they are aware of the situation and to that end, their relationship to certain relative points in the event.

As was alluded to, the posture and antics of the riders as well as the familiarity of their own subtle mechanics (lead changes) are all associative occurences that help form loose conclusions to the horse that we perceive as 'knowledge' on the part of the horse.

Just as something of an example off the top of my head:

I claimed a bad bleeder that gushed inside the quarter-pole the day that I claimed him. From that day forward, the horse, be it morning or afternoon, always had an adverse relationship to that point of the racetrack (drifted out, etc...). I'm not inclined to believe that he "feared" he would bleed at that point in a specific sense, but rather that he subconsciously associated that past trauma with every instance that re-created the traumatic event.

I don't know this with any certainty, but I'd say that Kelso, Forego, and John Henry all knew exactly where the wire was. It does make a lot of sense for horses that are very familiar with the track have some sense of where the finish is as well. Even when they workout, most horses shut it down right at the finish line, so it would make sense that they are accustomed to quit trying when they hit that spot on the track. Interesting subject.

One additional thought: If the horse had an awareness of where the finish was that could overrule the jockey, wouldn't Gallant Man have beaten Iron Liege in the 1957 Derby, since he would have "known" that Shoemaker was standing up in the irons too early? (I would imagine that the same thing regularly occurs on a wider (but less-publicized) scale.)

Anthropomorphism is alive and well I see.

Horses RUN out of a conditioned response to fight of flight. That is it.

A prime example of a conditioned response. A post suggests the grey matter inside a horse's head might serve a purpose other than space filler, and Zizal pops up to throw out the word anthropomorphism. Clearly no indication of actual thought processes occuring in either animal's case.

"Fight of Flight does not exist and that is not a typo."
 

Fencebored is right. The above response is lacking thought.
1. It does not address the questions posed at the start of the thread.
2. There is no such thing as "fight of flight." The poster doesn't even spot errors like that in his own writing - and that's not a typo.
3. Expect in a post or two to hear about Desmond Morris, even if it has nothing to do with the initial questions.