Indeed interesting, and it does not surprise me that a human can beat a animal carrying a heavy load (a human) in an endurance event given we are hairless sweaty mammals optimised for endurance rather than speed. Adding a proportional burden for humans (maybe 10kg) would give horses a huge advantage.

It seems the race is also long-term optimised for humans to win. There are a lot more human competitors (> 10:1 ratio). The prize fund increased by 1000 pounds per year until a human won, no doubt attracting faster and faster athletes in increasing numbers.

The course has also been varied making year on year comparisons difficult.

In order to make the race interesting it needs to have a balance between the two, make it too short and the horses will always win, make it too long and the humans will always win.

According to the article, the extended course used during two years favoured the horses.

> It seems the race is also long-term optimised for humans to win. There are a lot more human competitors (> 10:1 ratio). The prize fund increased by 1000 pounds per year until a human won, no doubt attracting faster and faster athletes in increasing numbers.

I suppose so, but that only gets you so far. If you did a human vs F1 race it wouldn't really matter how many humans were competing or how big the prize pool was, the car would still win every time. :p

The results table really surprised me.

Terrain can be tricky.

It also appears that the horses are given what appears to be a 15 minutes handicap under the guise of 'vet checks'. (Commentary is there under the history section of the article)

I couldn't find more information on whether there are other things done to favor human over the house.