Fillies Guineas 58kg

It is interesting to note that all in the field now carry 58 kg whereas a couple of decades ago the going weight was 55 kg. One can assume that jockeys are now heavier (and older, as those days jocks could have been 14 or 16 years of age) hence the adjustment in weight. However, the race clock time average remains to have stayed more or less the same.

how is this? same distance.

ie 2013 = 99.42sec (58 kg)
2012 = 98.52 (58 kg)
2011 = 100.23 (58 kg)

2003 = 101.61 (57 kg)
1993 = 96.7 (55 kg) (ok admittedly Hispanola won)
1983 = 98.4 (55.5 kg)
1973 = 99.8 (55.5 kg)

are we breeding stronger, faster horses?

Quite the opposite one would presume. Take the SEA COTTAGE shooting and the ability of the horse to still win the country's premier horse race with the bullet.

Impossible to do today.Also take a horse like WILLIAM PENN who was racing with zest at ten and beyond.I believe he did a stint at stud and came back to race.

Also the horses of a few decades ago could perform as a juvenile right thru to a six yr old in good style.

The fillies also fell into the same category with regards to the robustness and soundness etc.

The going must have been virtually identical also,anything but good fast going would have caused a much slower race

I would question the timing,i remember reading a bbc article that asked how come over the last 40 years man has got faster but horses have stayed the same or got slower

www.africanbettingclan.com/index.php/kun...hy-not-horses#463995

for sure, they lasted longer decades ago, ran up to 10 and 12yrs even. And 3 decades before that, they ran 'heats' races whereby about 4 races over 2 days, and the Met was followed by the QP the day after. Laddie ran and won 4 races in 4 weeks, for instance.

Ok, so cancel 'strength' and 'tenacity'. Horses retire at 4 to 6 on average now.

But speed? perhaps they are softer but speedier now? The debate about speed (ROI as in USA), has it manifested itself? Surely a 3 kg disadvantage at the weights would've had an impact on average finishing time (trend)?

Bob, could it be that humans - the better stronger faster ones, didn't always get opportunity to compete? Whereas the horse, was the only mode of transport decades ago - so was more prevalent in competing?

bbc article link working now, well worth a read

The WILLIAM PENN story..........................




WILLIAM PENN Best FMR: 137 lbs (Continued)

Sire: NETHERWOOD

Dam: ETHANE,

Damsire: MEHRALI,

Sex: Colt, Foaled: 1961, Colour: Bay, Country: SAF



William Penn




William Penn, bred by Mr A. Dell at the Platberg Stud, raced in the colours of Messrs A.W. Mitchell and J. Winshaw. He was bought by Mr Kleb for the owners at the 1963 Yearling Sales for R2,520. A handsome, almost black horse with a magnificent head, by Netherwood out of Ethane, he was a half brother to the great Hawaii (by Utrillo II) who was also bred by Mr Dell at his stud near Colesberg.

Trainer Willy Kleb was never in a hurry to race his 2-year-olds and William Penn only appeared three times as a juvenile winning one race in March 1964 at the Milnerton Racecourse. He started racing in earnest in December when he won three races over sprint distances in the Cape before going down to Durban where he ran second in a 5 furlong sprint and four days later won the South African Guineas at the Durban Turf Club by the large margin of 4½ lengths in the record time of 1 min. 38 secs. This win was from a top-class field of 3-year-olds including the Cape Mellow-wood Guineas winner, the outstanding filly Renounce (in the colours of Paul Dolt) and the South African Derby winner, Mr and Mrs Oppenheimers King Willow. Renounce was favourite at evens with William Penn starting at 6-1. William Penn then ran third in the 5 furlong Durban Merchants by 2 lengths. this was a race in which he ran second the following year when he was beaten by Charles Engelhard and Mrs P.M. Mosenthals Prize Bell. He was second again in the Clairwood Winter Handicap which was won by Mr B. Levins 5-year-old Java Head trained by Syd Laird.

As a 4-year-old, William Penn had only three runs. He ran second to Sea Cottage in the Newbury Stakes at Greyville, a race he contested five times, placed on each occasion, and which he won on his third attempt in 1968 from Mrs M.G. Elliss Magic Mirror. His last appearance in the race was in 1972 when he ran third to two young champions, Mr N. H. Fergusons In Full Flight and Mr and Mrs E. Tenderinis Mazarin.

Sea Cottage always had the edge on William Penn. In the 1967 Queens Plate Sea Cottage was first with William Penn in third position and Tuan second, and again in the w.f.a. Somerset Plate Sea Cottage was the winner with Mr P.J. de Wets Peter Beware second. However, William Penn won both the Cape Merchants Cup and the Durban Chairmans Plate.




The 1968 Queens Plate was an extremely exciting race with the strongly fancied Peter Beware finishing a neck in front of Blue Tavanier, with Gaskell third by half a length and William Penn a short head behind in fourth position. The following year, trying for the fourth time William Penn, then a 7-year-old, finally managed to capture the coveted Queens Plate, relegating Peter Beware to second position. William Pen had proved that he could most certainly stay more than a mile when carrying top weight, he had beaten Peter Beware in the 1968 Met. Mr Kleb had no doubts of his horses ability and his instructions to jockey Robby Sivewright were, Just leave your whip behind. You wont need it. The horse ran second to Chimboraa in the July carrying 132 lbs, the heaviest weight ever carried to a place in the race; furthermore he was drawn seventeenth in a field of 19 runners, which is considered an impossible draw round the Greyville bend. When William Penn won the Champion stakes from Hawaii in August it was the second and last time that these two half brothers met and on each occasion William Penn was superior (the first time was in the July when Hawaii ran fourth to William Penns second). William Penn won h is second Champion Stakes the following year in his only run as an 8-year-old after which he was retired to Colin Cohens Odessa Stud in the Cape.

On the sole occasion that William Penn raced in the Transvaal he ran second in the Transvaal Invitation Champion Stakes at Turffontein on 31st August, 1968 to Mrs A. Eatwells 3-year-old Home Guard, winner of the South African Guineas in June and second in the 1969 Rothmans July Handicap. The connections of William Penn were convinced that they would lead in the winner and the two horses started joint favourite at 2-1.

William Penn was a rig (a horse whose reproductive organs are imperfect) and not successful at stud and Mr Cohen decided to bring him back to race. He ran third in the Queens Plate, second in the Chairmans Plate, fourth in the Clairwood Champion Stakes and third in the Woolavington Cup, beaten only by the cream of the horses in training. During the 1972/73 season William Penn was an 11-year-old and his performances were unprecedented for a horse of that age. In one of the most thrilling finishes ever seen he ran second to In Full Flight in the Champion Stakes at Greyville, beaten by a neck with Mazarin a head behind third, and Kings Guard fourth. So fast was William Penn coming past the post that jockey Abercrombie thought he had won and took him into the winning enclosure. He again ran second to In Full Flight in the Somerset Plate in the Cape; his last victory was the Cape Trial Handicap over 1600 metres on 10th January 1973 on the Milnerton course where 10 years before he had won his maiden race.

William Penn was always trained by Willy Kleb who had a particular attachment to this gallant horse and considered him to be the best he ever trained. Mr Klebs life was dedicated to his horses but his great ambition - to win the Durban July - was never fulfilled. He ran second twice, with William Penn in 1968 and Kings Guard in 1972. This most gentlemanly of trainers spent the last day of his life on the racecourse at Kenilworth when he led in two winners, winning the last race of the day with his own filly, No Wonder.

(They Raced To Win, Jean Jaffee, 1980, pg.149)


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BACK TO WILLIAM PENN

William Penn was not a filly but something called a rig..................

WILLIAM PENN'S story is extraordinary.


www.queensplate.info/index.php?page=horse&horseid=1197

@mikesack. I have a trivial q on the blog about colts and fillies being the only qualifiers for a few of the Classics where geldings and rigs do not qualify. And i asked what is a rig? but there were no takers

Tks, I didnt know William Penn was a rig.