Man o' War's Stride?

Question

I know I already asked a guestion about his stride and it being 28ft and all, but I still don't get it! haha

How can a horse stretch to be 28ft long!?!

Now maybe it's just because I'm not understanding but when they say this, does it mean that when the horse runs it is how long it is when it streches one time like if you took the back legs and the front legs and like pulled and measured, is that what it means? Or is it every other stride, or... ?

I mean, I just don't imagine a horse streching that far! I need proof or I need someone to explain to me how this all lays out...!

Thank You!!

lol

-mel

Answer 1

A stride is one full rotation of all the legs.  When you're riding, you'll count one stride by feeling when the front legs touch down.  Everytime the lead leg touches down, it's a stride.  When a horse canters or gallops, they first move their back legs and then their front legs and then they hang in the air for a second before their back legs touch down again.  So, I think that moment they're in the air counts as part of the 28 feet of Man O War's stride.  You can measure from any footprint to the next time that leg makes a footprint, so lets imagine we're measuring from the first of his front legs touching down.  First that leg touches down, then the other front leg, then the horse is actually soaring through the air for a moment while his back legs are still getting up under him.  Look at the picture of Hunting winning the stakes at Aqueduct yesterday to see what I mean... the horse doesn't have any legs on the ground at all.  Then the back legs touch down, first the one, then the other, and there's still a long time before the front legs touch down.  So I think it's all of that time that they measure for the 28 feet.  it's not the distance from the back leg to the front leg... I don't think any horse could even exceed 15 feet if you measure it from the back to front leg when the horse's legs are all stretched straight in their respective directions (like this horse in the picture of Mario Pino winning his 6000th race:  http://sports.yahoo.com/rah/photo?slug=b... ).

Here's a series of pictures showing the horse's stride.  It's not measured at any point of these, but measured by the ground covered from the first picture of this print to the last.  http://www.allposters.com/gallery.asp?st...

I don't think it's so much that Man O War could stretch his legs farther than any other horse... I think it's more that he could push himself farther with each footstep than any other horse could.

I hope that helps you understand a little more.

Answer 2

isnt the man 'o' war a jellyfish