Greyhounds and thoroughbred racehorses are some of the fastest domesticated animals, but which is faster? This match race puts them to the test.
There have been some famous match races in history, but this match race just might be the most unusual one yet. Greyhounds are known for their blistering speed, and Thoroughbred racehorses are bred and trained to be some of the fastest horses on earth. But which is faster: a Thoroughbred or Greyhound? This match race puts both to the test.
Truth is, both Thoroughbreds and Greyhounds achieve about the same top speed, approximately 43 or 44 miles per hour. The caveat is that every single Thoroughbred and every single Greyhound isnt capable of reaching this top speed. Were talking about the top of the top, the fastest individuals in each species. So, the question of who is fastest gets a little cloudy.
This match race puts one Thoroughbred racehorse against one racing Greyhound. A specially designed track allows the two to race side by side. Take a look at what happens.
What is faster a horse or a dog?
Dogs can gallop for only about 10 to 15 minutes before reverting to a trot, and so their distance-running speed tops out at about 3.8 meters per second. Horses’ average distance-running speed is 5.8 meters per second—a canter. … Elite human runners, however, can sustain speeds up to 6.5 meters per second.
Dogs and Horses Are Built Differently
The key to any race is ensuring that the animal that you’ve selected to run in it is built to do well at the discipline in question. This isn’t just true when you’re talking about a potential battle between horses and dogs, but also when you’re looking at the individual sports that those two animals compete in. After all, there’s no point putting a two-year-old flat racing horse up for the Grand National when the Aintree contest rolls around.
Horses are bred for all sorts of different reasons, with the main ones being running on the flat and running over jumps. Even there, though, you’ll find that they’re trained to take on different events. A flat racing horse that has been trained for years to be as quick as possible over six furlongs would struggle if you doubled the length of the race that it was taking part in. That’s especially true when put up against horses specifically trained for mile-long events.
Jump racing differs from event to event, too. A horse that has spent its life jumping over hurdles might be able to take on a steeplechase, but it’s likely to struggle at the first time of asking. Equally, even the most powerful of steeplechase animals might not be able to run on a cross country course because of the different obstacles that it will come up against. Even in dog racing there are different disciplines that greyhounds are asked to take on.
The result of this is that the first thing you’ll need to think about when trying to decide who would win a race between a dog and a horse is what sort of race you’re asking them to compete in. After all, it doesn’t take a genius to work out which animal would win a steeplechase when the fences can stand at 52 inches and a greyhound is about two foot tall at most. It would be a pointless race to run, so instead we’re better off only thinking about flat racing.
Just because we’ve narrowed it down to flat racing doesn’t mean that it’s now a simple matter of putting a dog and a horse on a course and seeing which one will win. The English Greyhound Derby, for example, is run over 500 metres and usually take the winning dog less than thirty seconds to complete the race. Compare that to a six furlong horse race, which is the equivalent of about 1207 metres and will be competed in around 1 minute 12 seconds.
With research suggesting that both horses and dogs have seemingly reached the limit of their running speed, it’s unlikely that a dog or horse would be able to trained to run further at a faster speed than they currently can. As a result, picking a race that would be fair for both would probably be the best way of identifying once and for all which of the two animals is the fastest. The race would need to be a good compromise for each animal’s strength.
It is also worth considering the ground they are running on and the topography. If running up the side of a steep hill a dog will likely win due to it being smaller and more flexible, a shallow gradient grassy hill would suit a horse more though. If the ground is very soft and muddy this will suit a horse over a dog as it will be able to get more purchase on the ground and is less likely to get bogged down.
Perhaps somewhat unsurprisingly, this isn’t a question that is brand new. Indeed, many people have asked the question before. As a result, we can actually look back to specific events to see what the outcome was. One such example saw the top staying greyhound Ferry Forth Fran go up against Limerick Lord at Towcester Racecourse, which had both horse racing and greyhound racing tracks for the animals to run on simultaneously.
The reason Towcester was chosen for the race is that the winning post of both tracks was in line with each other, meaning that you could actively see which animal crossed the line first. Ferry Forth Fran was 3-years-old, whilst Limerick Lord was 4. The greyhound ran over a circuit and a half of the flat, left-handed course. Though the greyhound won the race, there’s an argument that it wasn’t totally fair, given that the horse had to run up hill.
The race at Towcester saw the horse miss out by 7/10ths of a second, meaning that you can assume it would have won if it had ridden on a course as flat as the one that the greyhound was running on. A similar race was run at Kempton Park in Middlesex, seeing 8-year-old greyhound Simply Fabulous up against 6-year-old thoroughbred Tiny Tim. The pair raced over two furlongs, which is 400 metres, with bookmakers making the horse an 8/11 favourite.
The dog was put at Evens, having won 14 races over 35 starts. In order to prevent distraction, the horse wore blinkers. It didn’t help, however, with Simply Fabulous winning the race with a time of 23.29 seconds compared to Tiny Tim’s 24.63 seconds. That amounted to a seven horse length, or 15 dog length, win for the greyhound, much to the surprise of the bookmakers, the watching public and even the horse’s jockey.
Greyhound V/S Horse Who Will Win ? Comment Below koun / JITEGA BHAILOG BATAO
When it comes to betting on racing, there are two main sports that most people look towards: horse racing and greyhounds. Whilst an annual race takes place in Wales to discover who would win if you pitted a man and a horse against each other (it’s virtually always the horse…), another question people that love sports might want to know is who would win between a horse and a greyhound if you put them on a track together.
The natural instinct is to assume that it would be the dog over short distance and the horse over a longer one, presuming that neither animal scares the living daylights out of the other. But is that assumption necessarily fair? Is the fact that a greyhound is built to run over a short distance as quickly as possible enough to mean that it would run out of steam if you asked it to run further and for longer? It’s an interesting question to pose.