I've seen horses do some pretty neat tricks. Apparantly they can add, subtract and guess what oversized playing card the trainer is holding behind his back every time without fail.

Running comes naturally to them, why not racing?

Now we've got something really interesting. It's not some dumb animal getting beaten the hardest by a midget, it's an animal that understands it's in competition with other animals to reach the finish line first. They get rewarded with something. Maybe they get to beat a midget with a stick.

For those that miss the midget doing the beating, perhaps there can be an area off track where there are mechanical horses outfitted with sensors and the midget that beats his plastic horse the hardest wins.
-- doctorremulac3, May 19 2019

American Pharoah Ends Triple Crown Drought At Belmont https://www.reddit....drought_at/crxzcad/
Mentioned in my anno. The permalinked comment and its children are the only comments on that post I really read or voted on, because the rest were about horse racing stuff that I didn't find interesting. [notexactly, May 28 2019]

Horses [-].

Horses are a herd animal. If one is startled, and runs, the rest of the herd runs too. It might be a predator.

Then again, it might be a butterfly, or a bit of paper blowing in the wind, or ... just nothing at all.

What is the interest in horse racing anyway, of whatever sort ? It's just a way of enriching bookmakers. No-one else gets anything out of it. At least with F1, advances like ABS, traction control and tyre compounds can be tested under extremely challenging conditions. But horses ? Horses are a dead end technology. Horses are nothing more than huge, hairy, evil-smelling bad-tempered parasites on your species. Horses are a bottomless pit to throw money into. Horses are a waste of oxygen.
-- 8th of 7, May 19 2019


So, jockey racing. The wee men with the sticks get to leg it round the course scrambling over the barriers and hitting anything within stick reach. Can't believe that hasn't been done.
-- pocmloc, May 19 2019


Why have them race ? Midget gladiators ... gotta be a top-rating show ...
-- 8th of 7, May 19 2019


On the one hand, [8th of 7] is right. Horse-racing is a huge industry based around most people involved losing money.
On the other, teaching a horse to run around in circles? Too easy. Teaching a horse to do dressage on its own? THAT'S a challenge for you.
-- neutrinos_shadow, May 19 2019


How about the exact opposite? Pigeons race solo, so they could be trained to carry a small passenger, like some kind of tiny shrew wearing a little harness. Actually I'm sure that this wouldn't work, which is why it's just posted as an annotation, and not an actual idea.
-- xenzag, May 19 2019


Trained marmoset monkeys could sit in and fly quadcopter drones. An adult marmoset only weighs about 250g, and they are intelligent* and learn quickly. They have excellent manual dexterity and opposable thumbs.

Persuading Martin-Baker to design and manufacture a marmoset -sized bang seat might be a challenge ...

If you recruited Japanese Snow Monkeys, you could probably get them to crash their craft into model U.S. aircraft carriers.

*More intelligent than the fools who bet on horse races, anyway.
-- 8th of 7, May 19 2019


I'm always disappointed when horses who lose their riders are ignored even when they cross the finish line first. As far as I'm concerned whey are simply using their initiative.
-- TheBamforth, May 27 2019


// using their initiative //

If they had any initiative, they'd say to themselves, "Aha ! I have rid myself of that irritating human that was sitting on my back. I will stop running and eat some grass instead."

But they don't. Because they are SO stupid.
-- 8th of 7, May 27 2019


I think those horses should win as well. After all, it's a horse race, not a jockey race, right?

But the most interesting moment in horse racing history (to me) was the headline "American Pharoah Ends Triple Crown Drought At Belmont"*, solely due to the humorous misinterpretation potential of the wording. [link]

*I had a hard time refinding the source, because of the misspelling of 'pharaoh'.
-- notexactly, May 28 2019



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