July 14, 2008, 5:06 PM CT

Gear up before revving up ATVs

Fourteen-year old Cristian Avina knows all too well the devastating injuries all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) can cause. Four months ago, Cristian and his sister, Rociel, hopped on an ATV for a little innocent fun in the desert near their home. Cristian was riding tandem with his sister when a bird flew into them causing him to lose control. The ATV crashed, sending Cristian and Rociel flyingneither was wearing a helmet. Cristian suffered serious head injuries, including an amputated ear.

This has been a nightmare, said Martha Avina, Cristian and Rociels mother. Rociel was not badly hurt and went for help. Upon her return, she saw that her brother had been pecked at and his severed ear had been partially eaten by vultures. Cristians ear could not be reattachedreconstructive plastic surgery to rebuild it started this summer.

Whether on vacation or out for recreation, a number of adults and children are hopping on ATVs for some warm weather fun. But ATVs are not toys. They can go more than 60 miles per hour, weigh more than 700 pounds and tip over easily. In fact, more than 135,000 Americans are injured in ATV-related accidents each year, 30 percent of them children, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) reports.

The American Society of Maxillofacial Surgeons (ASMS) and the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) are urging ATV riders, particularly parents and children, to be more cautious and follow safety tips to help reduce the occurence rate of ATV-related injuries......... Posted by: Gina      Read more         Source

July 14, 2008, 5:00 PM CT

China can't fully fix air quality problem for Olympics

The outlook for air quality in Beijing during the Olympics is borderline, and there's little that the Chinese government can do to improve it. That's the conclusion drawn by a University of Rhode Island atmospheric chemist who analyzed pollution data collected regularly for the last five years by Chinese scientists.

"There is both a local component and a regional component to the pollutants that cause unhealthy air in Beijing, and the severity of their effects are driven by weather fronts and winds," said Kenneth Rahn, a retired URI professor who travels to China several times a year to help researchers at Tsinghua University interpret their data. "Since it's controlled by the weather, it will be a matter of luck whether the bad air periods correspond with days of outdoor Olympic events".

Locally generated pollutants in Beijing consist primarily of organic matter from transportation, factories and cooking, while regional sources of pollution include ammonium sulfates and ammonium nitrates from coal-burning power plants, industry and transportation sources, which are easily transported long distances in the atmosphere, as per Rahn.

"The air pollution pattern in Beijing is unusual, with high and low concentrations that can differ by a factor of 50 to 100," Rahn said. "When the winds shift to the north and bring in clear air from Mongolia, the air can be relatively clean, though that's not the norm during the summer. But when winds are from the south, where there is a large population and lots of industrial activity, the air can be especially hazardous"......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

July 14, 2008, 4:28 PM CT

Tiger and Nicklaus might not have best advice

Golfers who heed the advice of instructors to keep their heads perfectly still while putting may be hampering their game, as per a research studythat examined coordination patterns.

The research appears in the recent issue of the Journal of Motor Behavior

Tim Lee, professor of kinesiology at McMaster University and a golfer himselfsays the findings run contrary to conventional wisdom, or at least conventional golf wisdom.

"Jack Nicklaus says the premier technical cause of missed putts is head movement; Tiger Woods believes that even a fraction of head movement can throw a putting path off course," says Lee. "Therefore, it would seem that based on what the experts say good putters keep their heads absolutely still from start to finish".

The putting stroke is used more frequently than any other during a round of golf, regardless of skill. In 2007, putts represented 41.3 per cent of total strokes taken by members of the PGA tour, and 40 percent for members of the LPGA.

Lee and his team assembled two groups of golfers: one group comprised 11 volunteers, aged 21 to 56, and with a handicap range of 12 and 40; and another group of professional and low-handicap golfers, aged 24-52.

Using an infrared tracking system, scientists recorded the putter head and the golfer's head during sixty putts......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

July 8, 2008, 8:39 PM CT

Stepping up to the challenge: A tall order

Researchers have recently become interested in the biomechanics of a very unusual activity: skyscraper run-ups. Competitors in this extreme sport ascend the steps inside the world's tallest buildings, the winners often scaling thousands of steps in just a few minutes. Impressive, yes, but why should these people be of interest to physiologists and biomechanists? Professor Alberto Minetti, from the University of Milan, pioneered the study after prior work on walking and running at different gradients. His research has gone on to shed light on the metabolic profile of athletes, as well as having a potential impact on studies of ageing. He will be presenting his results on Wednesday 9th July at the Society for Experimental Biology's Annual Meeting in Marseille [Session A2].

"The wide age range of participants, from teenagers to those approaching their centenary, has improved our knowledge of the decline in body performance as we get older," Professor Minetti explains. "Industries involved in cardio-fitness could also include the algorithms that we have developed in heart rate monitors, to help athletes maintain their best possible performance throughout races." Another very useful medical implication comes from prior work looking at differing gradients, which suggests that heart failure patients should rehabilitate by walking on a treadmill at a 10% downhill incline and at a slow, self-selected, speed......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

July 7, 2008, 5:22 PM CT

Perception of hole size influenced by performance

Golfers who play well are more likely to see the hole as larger than their poor-playing counterparts, as per a Purdue University researcher.

"Golfers have said that when they play well the hole looks as big as a bucket or basketball hoop, and when they do not play well they've been quoted as saying the hole looks like a dime or the inside of a donut," said Jessica K. Witt, an assistant professor of psychological sciences who studies perception in athletes. "What athletes say about how they see the hole and how well they play is true. We found golfers who play better judge the hole to be bigger than golfers who did not play as well.

"We know a relationship exists between performance and perception, but we are uncertain how they affect each other. For example, do golfers see the hole as bigger so they putt better? Or if they putt better, does that mean they see the hole as bigger? I believe it is a cyclical relationship, but more research is needed to clarify if one affects the other".

Witt's findings appear in the June Psychonomic Bulletin and Review journal. She co-authored the paper with Sally A. Linkenauger and Jonathan Z. Bakdash, both graduate students at the University of Virginia, and Dennis R. Proffitt, the Commonwealth Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

July 7, 2008, 5:14 PM CT

Baseball diamonds: the lefthander's best friend

Baseball diamonds are a left-hander's best friend. That's because the game was designed to make a lefty the "Natural," as per David A. Peters, Ph.D., the McDonnell Douglas Professor of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis and über baseball fan. Peters is a mechanical engineer who specializes in aircraft and helicopter engineering and has a different approach to viewing America's Favorite Pastime.

First of all, some numbers.

"Ninety percent of the human population is right-handed, but in baseball 25 percent of the players, both pitchers, and hitters, are left-handed," said Peters, a devoted St. Louis Cardinal fan who attended "Stan the Man's" last ball game at Sportsman's Park in 1963. "There is a premium on lefthanders for many reasons. For starters, take seeing the ball.

"A right-handed batter facing a right-handed pitcher actually has to pick up the ball visually as it comes from behind his (the batter's) left shoulder. The left-handed batter facing the right-handed pitcher has the ball coming to him, so he has a much clearer view of pitches."

Then, Peters says, consider the batter's box. After a right-hander connects with a ball, his momentum spins him toward the third-base side and he must regroup to take even his first step toward first base. In contrast, the left-hander's momentum carries him directly toward first......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

By the way, you may find this Sports blog.

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 02:27:25 GMT

How to COOK a NASCAR driver

© ninjapoodles With temperatures at 140 degrees, our favorite NASCAR driver might end up on the dinner table instead of beside it.

Seriously now, how long can you survive at 140 degrees. Obviously NASAR drivers can for quite a while. But the complaints are starting to heat up. What do you think? Are these high-paid drivers that, along with other sports, just have to put up with one of the casualties of the sport? What would we say if football players started to complain about helmets or shoulder pads not being cushioney enough? I say, take the heat, make a change, or get out of the oven. Posted by: James Koopmann      Read more     Source

Sat, 24 May 2008 22:52:26 GMT

Tiger Delays Return

Well, we all thought Tiger Woods was up to his superhuman standards again when he said he felt ready to return before the U.S. Open and wanted to do so at the Memorial.

But yesterday, Woods informed tournament organizers that he wasn't going to play after all.

He has been saying that his post-surgery recovery had been going very well and he was expecting a return to competitive golf ahead of schedule.

But that has apparently not held up. Perhaps he's suffered a setback; maybe he's been working the knee too intensely, trying too hard to get it ready sooner- it would certainly be in his nature to do that.

At any rate, Woods still intends to make his comeback at the U.S. Open. Ironically, that was always his target when he announced his knee surgery following the Masters last month.

Speaking of the Open, I wonder if Phil Mickelson will have his five wedges with him.

Mickelson is using five wedges right now at Colonial for this week's Crowne Plaza Invitational.

You'll recall he used two drivers at last year's Masters to very little effect, ultimately.

Lefty is one golfer who's willing to experiment and while his adventure with two drivers proved ineffective, carrying five wedges for a guy whose short game is near brilliant might just be the weapon he needs to win another major.

They helped him take the lead at Colonial yesterday.

Posted by: Chris Henry      Read more     Source

Sat, 24 May 2008 14:46:07 GMT

Seve Pulls for USA

Seve Ballesteros - now retired - was and is a man who marches to the beat of his own drum.

Therefore, it's not surprising to read that Seve hopes the US wins this September's Ryder Cup at Valhalla in Kentucky.

His reasoning? He doesn't want Europe's recent stranglehold on the Cup to become routine and boring.

And I believe he has a point. Constant domination by one side in any competition can quickly become last week's news (unless of course, it's Canada's domination over the world in the game of hockey....!).

Seve's Spanish blood pulses with the spirit of adventure and he puts it aptly when he states "I don't want to see a competition looking like a church service. I want to see a bullfight between the bull and the matador".

Generally, the matador always wins and Seve doesn't indicate who dons the horns to play the role of the bull. But you get his drift. Posted by: Chris Henry      Read more     Source

Sat, 24 May 2008 04:21:51 GMT

Chris Mortensen Holds Grudges

© abardwell Buffoonery at ESPN (see photo) is nothing new. The network is seemingly public enemy number one to sports bloggers, although Buzz Bissinger has probably stolen that title away, at least for the time being. To be fair, some of the criticism of the WWL is unfounded, though much is legitimate.

And so we come to the bastion of NFL knowledge, Chris Mortensen, and his four year grudge against one Mike Martz. To put this in context, just go back to 2004, when Mortensen reported it was possible Martz wouldn't be back with the team, as he might resign or be fired. This did not sit well with Martz, who publicly called out Mortensen. Mort then had to go on the air and explain why he threw out a rumor, and a big deal was made of it.

Since that time and even before, ESPN had not been kind to Martz because he won, but not the way the ESPN "experts" thought should be done, i.e. running the football and stopping the run (somehow, the Minnesota Vikings led the NFL in both of these categories last season and failed to make the playoffs). Nothing pleases ESPN analysts like running the football and stopping the run. If a team ran the football every play, but lost 21-0, ESPN would praise them for playing football the way "it oughta be played." And needless to say, Mike Martz teams throw the ball, and this annoys the Tom Jackson's and Mark Schlereth's of the world to no end.

So Martz has never been a popular guy at the WWL, and Mortensen went to another level to rip Martz some more. Mortensen seemingly does his best to excuse the Patriots, and instead focuses his wrath on the Rams and Martz, in a very odd way by saying if Matt Walsh was present at the walkthrough, it's Martz's fault. Mortensen goes on to call him "foolish," and claimed his coaching was an "outrage." He goes on to do his best to discredit Martz for having the audacity to hold a walkthrough, citing former coaches and players that undermined the need for them.

What Mortensen completely ignores is that maybe, just maybe, Walsh wasn't completely telling the truth about watching the Rams practice in full Pats gear and simply setting up video equipment. It's more than a little doubtful that Walsh was simply walking around, because Martz was comically paranoid about people watching his practices and walkthroughs from his earliest days as Rams head coach. This is a fact that Mortensen could have ascertained had he done even the most basic of research instead of concentrating his efforts to get back at Martz for calling him out and questioning his reporting.

For instance, this article in the NY Times, written by Mike Freeman in 2000, chronicles Martz's paranoia:Last week, in the middle of a Rams practice, Martz saw two people on a hillside warehouse near the practice field. Martz sent the team's security director, Dan Linza, to chase them away. Then Martz ordered Linza to walk the length of the large warehouse - twice - to see if anyone else was watching.

''I'm paranoid, like all coaches are paranoid,'' Martz said. ''You have people watching with a notepad, or a camera, somehow it makes you paranoid.''

But the paranoia did not stop there. During that same practice, a newspaper photographer took several photos of safety Keith Lyle, something even the tense Vermeil allowed. This time, the team asked the photographer to stop. When the photographer later tried to make a call on his cell phone, a Rams official threatened to take away the phone.

Later on, Martz had a large tarp put up blocking any outside views of the practice field. He also lashed out at a reporter once after the scribe asked him about using running backs Marshall Faulk and Trung Candidate in the same formation.

So instead of holding a ridiculous grudge for four years, maybe next time Mortensen should do his homework instead of continuing to try to get even, or make the Patriots look a little less like cheats. Then again, this is the World Wide Leader we're talking about, whose new slogan should be, "ESPN: Compromising journalistic integrity since 1979!" Posted by: Kyle Smith      Read more     Source

Sun, 18 May 2008 23:55:50 GMT

Sorenstam To Retire

Courtesy: Fairways.ca

You could say she's going out on a high note.

Annika Sorenstam has announced she will retire at the end of the year. But she's not going quietly.

She has won three times this season, most recently this past Sunday, and can now boast 90 career victories. Included in that superlative figure are 10 majors. Posted by: Chris Henry      Read more     Source

May 14, 2008, 8:34 PM CT

Racism not an issue in firing of NBA coaches

Race is not a factor in the firing of NBA coaches, eventhough white coaches with losing records had somewhat longer tenures before being fired than African-American coaches with more losses than wins, a new study shows.

The University of Michigan study looked at differences between firing of African-American and white coaches in the National Basketball Association. The study found no difference in "technical efficiency" by race of coach, and found no evidence that there are differences in firings based on race, says lead researcher Rodney Fort, U-M professor in the Division of Kinesiology.

"The only strange thing about race that we came up with is that of the coaches who were fired, white coaches seemed to have a little bit longer tenure," Fort said. In other words, losing white coaches may get a slight benefit of the doubt relative to African-American coaches. Fort stressed this as an area for future research.

Fort said the NBA is the most integrated professional sport, so the results are not all that surprising, but they are significant.

The market for coaches in the NBA works like any other healthy labor market is ideally supposed to work--coaches must perform. By using the same scoring method scientists used, owners can calculate their current coach's value, or technical efficiency, by how a number of wins were produced. It appears that a number of owners already use the score system, since the league average score was about 13 percent higher than the average score of fired coaches, as per the paper. This is a valuable tool when setting salaries, Fort said......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

April 21, 2008, 6:10 PM CT

Sharper imags: sports vision clinic

The standard eye chart only covers letters and numbers, but athletes need above average vision to track balls hurtling toward them at alarming speeds. To test those special skills, a University of Houston optometrist has founded the Sports Vision Performance Center, a facility where athletes perform while a strobe light is flashing, play tag with a board of lights and engage in other activities designed to improve their visual abilities.

The biggest problem that athletes face is not knowing they can potentially see much better than 20/20 vision, said Kevin Gee, a Fellow of the American Academy of Optometry and an assistant clinical professor with the UH College of Optometry. Gee opened the Sports Vision Performance Center in January to individual athletes and teams from various sports, and utilizes a range of tests to analyze what is called the visual system.

The visual system is more than just whats the smallest line on the chart you can see, Gee said. The visual system consists of many things, but specifically for sports, depth perception, color, speed and accuracy of movements and contrast sensitivity or the ability to detect an object off a background.

To assess these skills, Gee and his staff use instruments, such as a 3-D movie projected on a computer screen with shimmering objects that pop up to measure depth perception, a lighted batting test that can time up to one-thousandth of a second to gauge timing and accuracy, and a Dynavision board a vertical lighted peg board that determines reaction time, peripheral awareness and accuracy of movement......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 18:45:11 GMT

MLB And NFL Players

© ConspiracyofHappiness Baseball season begins today (okay, it started last week in Japan, but that doesn't really count), and for many football fans, it is a way to fill the summer months until college and NFL action begin again. With that, here's a look at some players who were talented enough to excel at both sports.

- Jim Thorpe: Thorpe, one of America's greatest athletes ever, played baseball from 1913 to 1919, from ages 26-32, mostly for the New York Giants. He didn't play much, and only had a .252 career batting average. From ages 32-40, Thorpe played pro football. He played for the Canton Bulldogs, Cleveland Indians, Oorang Indians, Rock Island Independents, New York Giants and Chicago Cardinals. He also coached his team four of those years, and is enshrined in Canton.

- Bo Jackson: Everyone knows Bo. Jackson played for three MLB teams in the 1980's and '90's. He was an All-Star once and hit 141 home runs while stealing 82 bases during his career. Bo's football career was shorter, as he suffered the hip injury that would eventually lead to his retirement. Jackson was a two time All-Pro despite never rushing for 1,000 yards or scoring more than 5 touchdowns. He did, however, average a ridiculous 5.4 yards per carry for his career.

- Deion Sanders: Sanders was probably a better baseball player than some gave him credit for. He was a career .263 hitter who swiped 186 bases in his 9-year career. Obviously, Sanders was more famous for his days in the NFL. He was an 8-time Pro Bowler an All-Pro 9 times. He had 53 career interceptions and scored 23 total TD's via INT, reception, or kick/punt return.

- Brian Jordan: Jordan had a much longer baseball career than football career, as he spent 15 seasons in the majors, as opposed to just 3 seasons in the NFL. Jordan was a career .282 hitter who nailed 184 home runs and stole 119 bases. On the football field, Jordan started for the Atlanta Falcons at strong safety for two seasons, and his best season was 1991, when he had 4 sacks, 2 interceptions, 2 safeties and a fumble recovery. Posted by: Kyle Smith      Read more     Source

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 17:41:47 GMT

Golf Digest's "Big Contest"

Courtesy: ExpandingKnowledge.com
Torrey Pines, site of the 2008 U.S. Open

How do you spell gimmick?

Well, if you work at Golf Digest magazine, you spell it "U S O p e n C o n t e s t".

U.S. Open Contest. It must have been a slow day in the sales department when Golf Digest elected to pour a great deal of time and energy into this one. Posted by: Chris Henry      Read more     Source

April 3, 2008, 8:26 PM CT

Computer System Consistently Makes Most Accurate NCAA Picks

Sports professionals and fans get pretty emotional about their picks for the NCAA basketball tournament each year, and that emotion often clouds their judgment.

But three engineering professors at the Georgia Institute of Technology have created a computer ranking system, called LRMC, that consistently predicts NCAA basketball rankings more accurately than the AP poll of sportswriters and the ESPN/USA Today poll of coaches, formulas (the Ratings Percentage Index), other computer models (the Massey ratings and the Sagarin ratings), and even the tournament seeds themselves.

After correctly picking all four of this year's finalists, the LRMC method has now identified 30 of the last 36 Final Four participants (83 percent accuracy over the past nine years of NCAA tournaments) as one of the top two teams in their region. Over the same nine-year stretch, the seedings and polls have correctly identified only 23, and the RPI indentified 21.

LRMC (Logistic Regression Markov Chain) is a college basketball rankings system designed to use only basic scoreboard data, including which teams played, which team had home court advantage and the margin of victory. It was originally designed by Joel Sokol and Paul Kvam and has been maintained and improved by Sokol and George Nemhauser, all three optimization and statistics professors in the Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

April 1, 2008, 10:15 PM CT

Soccer robots compete for the title

Robot soccer is an ambitious high-tech competition for universities, research institutes and industry. Several major tournaments are planned for 2008, the biggest of which is the 'RoboCup German Open'. From April 21-25, over 80 teams of researchers from more than 15 countries are expected to face off in Hall 25 at the Hannover Messe. In a series of soccer matches in several leagues, they will be putting the latest technologies on display. The tournament is being organized and carried out by the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems IAIS in Sankt Augustin.

For a machine, a soccer match is a highly complex endeavor. Robots must be able to reliably recognize the ball, the sidelines and the goalposts in addition to distinguishing between their teammates and opponents. To this end, they are outfitted with all sorts of high-tech equipment: cameras and sensors scan the robots' surroundings, internal processors convert data to define game tactics and defense strategies, and innovative engines allow the automated players to sprint across the field and unexpectedly fake out their opponents.

There are now nine leagues, each of which has its own technological focus. In the middle-size league, robots get around on wheels. Four players and a goalkeeper compete for each team on a 20 x 14-meter pitch with standard soccer goals. They must be able to function completely independently and are equipped with internal camera systems that process information in real time. What's more, the robots can move up to two meters per second......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

March 27, 2008, 8:57 PM CT

Retired NFL players at increased risk for heart problems

Screening for cardiovascular problems in elite-level football players should begin in high school and continue throughout the lives of college and professional players. Mayo Clinic physicians based that conclusion on the results of their new study of the cardiovascular health of 233 retired National Football League (NFL) players.

The Mayo data showed that 82 percent of NFL players under age 50 had abnormal narrowing and blockages in arteries, compared to the general population of the same age. This finding suggests that the former athletes face increased risk of experiencing high blood pressure, heart attack or stroke. The report on research conducted by the Mayo Clinic Arizona group will be presented next week at the American College of Cardiology Annual Scientific Session in Chicago.



Significance of the Mayo Clinic Study

This is the first and largest study to measure comprehensive cardiovascular performance measures on retired NFL athletes, ages 35 to 65. Its findings add to the emerging portrait of poor heart health among this group of retired athletes. The findings also suggest that players as young as high school age who are engaged in serious competitive-conference level of training and play may benefit from regular cardiovascular screening. What we hope to emphasize with our findings is that all NFL players -- retired or not -- need to undergo cardiovascular health evaluation because they may have changes in heart and vessel conditions that we can treat so they dont experience problems that may occur later in life, says Robert Hurst, M.D., Mayo Clinic cardiologist and lead researcher......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

March 9, 2008, 4:26 PM CT

Comeback to a pre-injury level for baseball players

Only 45 percent of baseball players were able to return to the game at the same or higher level after shoulder or elbow surgery, as per new research released recently during the 2008 American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine Specialty Day at The Moscone Center.

In an ideal world, of course, we would get 100 percent of the players back to their pre-injury level or higher, says Steven B. Cohen, MD, assistant team doctor for the Philadelphia Phillies and director of Sports Medicine Research at the Rothman Institute in Philadelphia. But the fact of the matter is at this elite level of the sport, the physical demands of throwing have much higher requirements than the regular person on the street. The average person who has shoulder or elbow surgery can return to their regular activities. Throwing a baseball at the professional level puts a significant amount of stress on the shoulder and the elbow.

Over a four-season period, Cohen and his colleagues studied 44 players from one professional baseball club (major league, AAA, AA and A) who underwent 50 shoulder and elbow operations by a variety of surgeons. There were 27 shoulder surgeries performed on 26 players and 23 elbow surgeries performed on 21 players. A key finding of the study was that players returning after elbow surgery were more likely to comeback to the same or higher playing level than those who had shoulder surgery. Thirty-five of the players were pitchers with 43 percent returning to the same or higher playing level......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 14:31:21 GMT

Not so Studly?

In an interesting article available in Biology Letters; Alastair J. Wilson and Alastair J. Wilson apply evilutionary biology to the question of whether race horse studs are worth the money. Racehorses from prized bloodlines can command stud fees upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars, but according to Wilson and Rambaut, stud fee is a poor predictor of offspring performance.

Using techniques developed in evilutionary biology to answer questions regarding sexual selection and quantitative genetics, Wilson and Rambaut, "test whether there is genetic variation for success on the racecourse by analysing data on lifetime prize money earnings [and] ask whether stud fees are a useful indicator of a stallion’s genetic quality and hence its offspring’s prize-winning potential."

Unfortunately for breeders, parentage only accounts for 10% of the variation in lifetime earnings.

Dr. Wilson says, "The offspring of expensive stallions might tend to win more money, but not necessarily because they have inherited the best genes."It is likely that those breeders best able to pay high stud fees are also those who are able to spend more on care of the horse, how it is trained, and who rides it -- all of which will contribute more to how much it will win.''''

Of course, given the competitiveness of horse racing, this probably will not deter studs from commanding high fees because people with money will spend it for any advantage no matter how small.

Photo: Secretariat winning the Preakness.
Alastair J. Wilson Posted by: Dennehy      Read more     Source