Thomas on Horses
Profile: Hansen
Hansen (Eclipse Sportswire)
PPs and Pedigree
The horse I would expect to see chasing Bodemeister is Hansen, an incredibly good physical athlete. But I haven’t seen anything from Hansen that indicates an ability to manage multiple stimulus. He’s the kind of horse that is super in forward motion. He’s really into space, which is a good thing, but it limits his versatility, psychologically.
Hansen has a straight line of sight. He doesn’t scan around. He’s straight in front of him or straight behind him. He’s balls-to-the-wall forward motion. It’s what he does best.
In the Blue Grass, it looked like he didn’t even feel Dullahan out in the center of the track coming at him. Hansen is not aware of a horse coming from 10 feet away on the outside. That tells me his circle is not real big.
His individual dynamic is very high. His group dynamic, I am a little bit shady on. I don’t know how he’ll react if he is in a group of traffic. I do not see him as a horse that controls space. He’s not managing anything. He’s just moving through it. His projection is forward, always. As the races get harder and longer, he can be chased down.
I’d rather Hansen have a horse to chase, instead of being chased. He needs a target to make him his most powerful. Because of his high individual dynamic — he’s very off balance — his patterns of motion require a horse to go around, something to hunt and then to send him into his top gear turning for home. He’ll take that open space, but they’ll have to hope there’s not another horse right there ready to take the lead away from him.
He’ll need a fairly specific situation to win this Derby.
Kerry Thomas is a groundbreaking researcher of behavioral genetics in horses. He created emotional conformation profiling, which measure’s the mental and emotional capacities of the equine. Horse owners around the world use him to profile and unlock the minds of their horses both in training and pre-purchase evaluations. Thomas’ work in the field of equine behavioral genetics has pioneering applications in all the sport horse industries, including Thoroughbred racing and breeding. 
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