Unfortunately, there exists no authentic contemporary confirmation (re, from 1920) that supports the 28-foot measured length argument. It must be regarded as conjecture. But the issue really should not be focused the maximum length of MOW's stride; what is most relevant, and what my brother-in-law and I sought to uncover and determine, was the length of MOW's sustainable running stride.
In any horse, maximum stride length translates into rapid muscle fatigue and the shortening of the stride and a slowing down. During the late 1970s, we acquired from MovieTone News in Manhattan a copy of every newsreel film that still existed of MOW -- hundreds and hundreds of feet of 16 mm film -- many of which showed segments taken from his races.
We transferred much of that film onto videotape to still-capture his running gait and motion. Nothing definitive could be obtained. The imprecise measurements we made suggested a sustainable running stride of about 25 to 26 feet.
Perhaps one of the single most interesting running segments that we took the opportunity to study, was his stretch run in the 1920 Belmont Stakes. The newsreel photographer had positioned his camera directly alongside the inside rail so that he captured MOW head-on as he came bounding down the track through the home stretch. And, even though he was clearly held under a snug pull by jockey Clarence Kummer, his high bounding pendulum-like running action is clearly displayed. But that contributed nothing to our inconclusive investigation into the actual length of his running stride.
The exhibit shown at the Kentucky Horse Park, with respect to MOW’s alleged 28-foot stride, is based on speculation and conjecture. Nothing more. MOW might well have had such a stride length, but it appears never to have been truly documented by any creditable contemporary source when he was racing. Sorry.
