Originally Posted by
str
Yes Kona, they are badly needed in the USA. Why? A few reasons. First, our horses are so much more keyed up than the UK horses. They have their horses training on farms with rolling hills and open paddocks. We have our horses training at the tracks for the most part where more noise and commotion goes on in an hour than the UK horses see in a week.
USA horses are also bred with more speed. Crazy speed. Hair on fire speed. And that shows in the offspring's temperament. so between those two things, a gate crew is really needed.
If you find a laid back racing horse in America, it's a heck of a find. Most are lit up by the smallest thing. And the gate is the highest anxiety part of the race anyway for many horses, so for the US horses they are a must.
I did see somewhere, maybe not here, that someone posted that he saw the gate guy holding the horses tail and thought he was trying to cheat get the horse beat by making the horse break slow. That is not the case. Sometimes the horse needs to be "tailed". What that is, is holding the horses tail upwards, therefore putting more weight towards the front, which will make the horse break downhill and forward instead of sitting back on the hind legs and lunging, thus getting left and probably squeezed.
Not sure where I saw that comment but hopefully whoever though to write that reads this so they have a better understanding of what they are seeing.
I realize that it does look sometimes like the guy at the gate is not helping the horse, and sometimes that can be true. A good head starter, the guy that pushes the button , and the guy in charge, not only keeps a book on every horse but constantly updates that book to make damn sure what the horse needs now is up to date. Some scribble in a note pad that is old information is useless. One thing I will say about by years in Md., that starters and the gate crew really took detailed notes. But unless the trainer is in tune and in communication with the gate crew and they work together, you don't have the optimum setup. So some of the bad starts and things you see on TV can actually be the trainers fault for not doing their part to make the gate experience the best it can be for every horse they are in charge of. And like most things, the more the trainer shows that they really care about the gate, and the gate crew and the way their horse acts back there, the more the gate crew will respond positively towards the horse. If a trainer blows the gate crew off, which makes the gate crews work harder, they will resent that and they will have less patience with the horse.
Most times, frustration shown towards a horse that constantly loads poorly is really frustration towards the trainer who for whatever reason does not take gate work seriously. Sometimes it is the horse but more often than not, the trainer could have attempted to do more. Especially at lesser tracks, not Saratoga. Up there, you do it right or your out quick.
Hope that helps.