Happy New Year and a happy birthday to them too - By Shailendra Awasthi I TNN
Posted on - 01 Jan 2011
Happy New Year and a happy birthday to them too
Shailendra Awasthi TNN
Mumbai: What is common between Britain’s champion horse Workforce and his Indian counterpart Jacqueline or for that matter the thoroughbred horses in the northern hemisphere? They share a common birthday which falls on January 1 every year.
While the entire world would party wild to usher into a new year, there will be no such celebrations in the stables, simply because their common birth date is a need to simplify the process of determining their ages.
“In the northern hemisphere, the age of a horse is reckoned from January 1 every year,” says Satish Iyer, Registrar, Stud Book Authority of India. A common date to calculate the age of a horse simplifies the process of deigning races for various age groups.
For example, the Indian Derby is open only for the horses which are four-yearold. Having a common birth date helps in determining the eligibility and other terms of the race.
Indian racing is a legacy of British Raj and we still follow the British racing pattern. Mares have a gestation period of 11 months and roughly 11 days. This forces breeders to chalk out a plan for breeding early in spring. Hence foals (baby horses) are typically born in the first quarter of the succeeding year.
This way, the horses born between January and April or on later dates become a year old on January 1 in the succeeding year. In the market, there is a greater demand for horses born earlier in the year.
“They are more in demand compared to the horses born beyond April or later because they look more mature and naturally attract buyers,” says KN Dhunjibhoy, one of the major players in Indian breeding sector.
It doesn’t mean that horses born later than April are less strong and are of a lesser calibre. “It’s a misconception,” says Dhunjibhoy. “In fact, one of my horses called Indictment was born on May 27 and yet he went on to win the Indian Derby,” explains Dhunjibhoy.
Time to blow the candles then and sing Happy Birthday to all thoroughbreds.
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