Somebody had posted something recently about ages for Australian horses and, while it doesn’t affect horses in FF, it got me thinking (always a bad thing).
Scenario:- Horse A is born in Australia on Jan 10, 2015. On Aug 1, 2017, he would be classified as a 3YO in Australia but still be classified as a 2YO in America. If he was sent to be trained and race in America, would he be able to race there as a 2YO before Dec 31st, 2017? Would it matter if he had raced as a 3YO in Australia before being shipped to America?
I tried googling this question but wasn’t able to figure out what to search for. Any ideas of where I could go to find the answer to my question? Or does anybody know the answer?
If the horse was born in America and shipped to Australia to race, would he be qualified to run in 3YO races after Aug 1st, 2017 (not that you’d want to as he would be very young still).
Honestly not sure. I know for the Dubai World Cup carnival they specifically say southern hemisphere horses must be X age and northern hemisphere X age to account for the difference.
UAE Derby (UAE-G1) Qualification:
3-year-olds from the Northern & 4-year-olds from the Southern Hemisphere
So I imagine those in the southern hemisphere must be 1 year “older” than American horses to compete in age-specific races, rather than 1 year younger. So a 3yo in Australia would be classified as a 4yo in America to account for southern hemisphere horses being born much later in the northern hemisphere racing season. If a 3yo-restricted USA race comes along, southern hemisphere horses must be considered a 4yo down under as a way to give them extra growth months.
I had to really draw that out for it to make sense in my own brain, lol.
(No way it’s coming to FF, though, just thinking about it makes my brain hurt, let alone adding logic to the game. I know you weren’t suggesting that, but just to be clear.)
Not in a million years!!! Just one of the “joys� of being Retired. Too much time on my hands and not a lot to do with it (or a “honey-do� list that is so overwhelming you don’t even want to think about where to start). So the mind wanders onto random thoughts!!!
It made my brain hurt figuring out the RL setup, lol. Luckily FF operates in a magical world where everything is the same season, there’s no quarantine, and it’s years in the future.
The horse would race as per the age it would be under the countries rules it is racing in. As an example, the last Melbourne Cup winner (Rekindling) is a northern hemisphere horse sent to Australia for the race. It was listed on the form guide as a 4 year old. But was racing in the UK as a 3 year old
