Where Are the Fillies?
Rags to Riches became only the third female in history and the first since 1905 to win the Belmont Stakes, the last and longest of the Triple Crown races for three-year-old horses. She did this despite stumbling out of the gate and having to run on the outside the entire race. Unlike humans, however, female horses have historically done quite well running against males, but not so well at that young age. This article from the Washington Post explains why that might be.
Where Are the Fillies?
By Andrew Beyer
Tuesday, June 12, 2007; E01The Belmont Stakes didn’t generate much pre-race excitement, but when Rags to Riches won a thrilling stretch duel, she stirred the emotions of everyone who watched — and she made history, too. Rags to Riches was the first filly in 102 years to capture the final leg of the Triple Crown series. To many casual viewers of ABC’s Belmont telecast, it may have seemed extraordinary that a filly could defeat colts and overcome such historic odds. In the world of human athletics, the top female in a sport would have no chance against her male counterpart.
In fact, Rags to Riches’s performance wasn’t all that unusual. Female thoroughbreds can and do compete successfully against males, but in U.S. racing they rarely get the chance. Only 11 other fillies since 1900 had attempted to win the Belmont Stakes. Various factors — many of them economic — deter owners and trainers from pursuing a venturesome course with fillies.
An abundance of evidence in international racing proves that the supposedly weaker sex can succeed at the highest level of the sport. Females have beaten males numerous times in the various Breeders’ Cup races. The French filly Miesque was one of the most impressive horses ever to win the Breeders’ Cup Mile, and she did it twice, in 1987 and 1988. Females won Europe’s most prestigious race, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, five straight times from 1979 to 1983. Last year, the British mare Ouija Board took on the best males in five countries, winning two Grade I stakes and finishing second in two others.
So why do fillies appear so rarely in the U.S. Triple Crown races? Many years ago I talked with the late trainer Angel Penna — who twice won the Arc de Triomphe with fillies — about gender in thoroughbred racing. His explanation was a revelation. Just as with adolescent boys and girls, Penna said, young horses develop at different rates. As 2-year-olds, colts and fillies are relatively equal in strength. But by the spring of their 3-year-old year, the colts have spurted ahead in their development. The fillies don’t catch up until the fall.
Penna’s theory has held true over the years. Female racehorses can beat males late in their 3-year-old season or when they are older. Overall, males are better and faster, but the gap between the ability of the sexes is narrow when compared to human runners. The difference between the men’s and women’s world record in the mile is 29 seconds. By contrast, Secretariat’s record for 1 1/8 miles at Belmont Park was 1:45 2/5 ; the filly Go for Wand ran the distance in 1:45 4/5 .
Todd Pletcher, the trainer of Rags to Riches, manages his horses conservatively, and under most circumstances he would not run a filly against colts. But he saw a golden opportunity in the Belmont.
After winning the Kentucky Oaks on May 4, Rags to Riches didn’t have a worthwhile next target until the Mother Goose Stakes at Belmont Park on June 30 — and it is worth only $250,000. When Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense defected from the $1 million Belmont, the field was left with only two legitimate contenders, Curlin and Hard Spun. Curlin had already had a very taxing campaign this spring, and Hard Spun didn’t appear to have the stamina to run 1 1/2 miles.
Rags to Riches possesses a distance-running pedigree that is as good as any horse on the continent. Her sire won the Belmont, and her high-class dam produced the winner of last year’s Belmont. She figured to improve at the distance, and her rivals might regress.
Yet Pletcher still hesitated, and his hesitation was characteristic of the thinking that deters many trainers from running top fillies against colts. Pletcher said at the post-race news conference: “She’s so good, that . . . if I don’t do something wrong, there’s a decent chance that no filly is ever going to beat her. I was concerned about doing the wrong thing by the filly. . . . You get one that’s this good and you want to protect them and you want them to never get beaten.”
So apparently the reason this has not happened in over a century is because male horses grow up faster than females, not because females cannot compete.
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