At Lingfield Park in Southern England on Saturday, the nine year old gelding Captain Lars won his 11th race of 2018. He won the 5 furlong sprint on the synthetic track in 57.72 seconds. Captain Lars is rated the equivalent of an American older $10,000 – $12,500 open claimer.
The Captain’s prolific race record this year is remarkable by US standards, but not unusual in the UK and Ireland. He clearly thrives on racing, and like all horses that run in the UK and Ireland, he does not run on Lasix. Many experts will reasonably suggest that this is the reason Captain Lars bounces back from his races more quickly and can run far more often than horses who experience the dehydrating effects of the diuretic drug that is routinely used here in the US. Captain Lars has run thirty times (so far) this year. That includes six races in February, and six in March. With eleven wins, he is clearly in good health and doing very well.
While Captain Lars runs and wins more often than a lot of horses in the UK, navigating around the racing post to check the race records of many other older horses of similar ability shows that many horses over there regularly run two or three times in the space of a month – and fifteen to twenty times in a year – and thrive on it.
Captain Lars races in the UK and is a South African bred horse who started his career there. But don’t be misled to believe he has different blood to our US thoroughbreds. His damsire was the American bred Polar Falcon (USA).
So why do so many horses in the UK and Ireland manage to have prolonged careers and run so often over there? What is the difference?
Captain Lars has never raced on a dirt track. Just Turf and Synthetic. And he has never raced on Lasix. Just Water, Hay and Oats.
Coincidence?
— Carl Wilson