Cannon-I appreciate your advice but I've been around this game long enough and at different capacities to know that you can't believe everything you read. That goes for many things also. By the way, I didn't read this I heard it first hand. I spend most of my time close to the tracks in the northeast so that is generally where I do my horse business and that is where I am in tune with the most.

I never mentioned stress fracture in my previous threads so I don't know where you came up with that. Most horses running today have various ailments and trainers continue to run them depending on the trainer and the ailment. They can continue to run good but maybe not have as long of a career. I'm sure you already know this. As far as speculation is concerned, I'll chose to listen to the connections speculation rather then somebody on a message board. They would know more about their horse than us and by the way Tim Ritchey is a straitforward guy in this business. He doesn't like to pull punches.

As usual, this is right on the money. RIGHT ON THE MONEY.

Yes, I have often wondered about the late start back as well. I have also wondered why in the world that they rushed Alex back to the track so quickly after he had that screw inserted and gave him such a quick workout. That, no doubt, did the horse in, but he might have been gone anyway. I liked the way that they trained him though. I think getting out of his stall two times a day helped him since the horses stabled at the tracks can't get out into the pastures to romp around. I don't think that this would work with every horse, or hardly any horse, but it actually may have helped hold Alex together as long as he stayed together. Thanks...your post makes sense as usual.

So u are saying that u have firsthand knowledge that these people KNEW that he was injured in the Preakness but instead of backing off on him, they pushed forward just for the sake of winning the Belmont? How in the world is this in line with what they always stated, that they were doing what was best for the horse? If indeed u got this first hand and it's a fact that he was hurt in the Preakness, their actions were not only dangerous and insensitive to the horse, but I would argue that they border on criminal.

there are many reasons why horses don't run as much as in the 'good old days'.

breeding practices for one--commercial breeders imo are hurting the breed, going after speed regardless of the horse who carries that speed. way back when, breeders were in the sport due to love of the horse, and love of sport. they bred looking for the best representatives of the breed, now it's who will fetch the biggest price at auction. it's the equivalent of puppy mills anymore. many aren't in it to improve the breed, but only to improve their bottom line. it's why i have respect for dinny phipps, and the few others like him. they are in it for love of the horse, and for the horse.

also, regarding tracks..i've always seen that the tracks today are deeper, slower, and safer than in the past. it explains why horses may have gotten faster, yet records don't fall.

as for running more often.... no one wants to take a chance anymore on a loss, so the horses are brought along easily until in peak condition when they're at their very best, ready to fire big. of course there are so many tracks with top races, it's a lot easier to find a good, lucrative, and no doubt easier spot to go after big bucks and a graded race. a lot more tracks than in the past, easy to avoid other top comp--don't like the weight assigned? threated to pull out, or pull out...next track down the road will hook you right up.
also, everyone wants a bull lea now--not the citation. don't run often, you may not be at your best and might lose and cost some stud fees.....

it's a breeding game right now. not a racing game.

it's funny, back then, horses got a lot of respect when they carried a mound of weight and still fought hard. might get nipped at the wire by some pretender, but everyone knew they had seen a true champ--horses like citation for example.

look at dr fager. set a mile record that stood for years while carrying weight no horse sees these days. najran tied it. you think anyone gives a rats butt about najran? nope. the good dr is the one who will be revered for years to come, he was the real racehorse.

so, you want to place blame? put it squarely on the breeders shoulders. that's where it belongs. owners pretty much want to buy the best looking one out there. the breeders are the ones who are supposed to be the knowledgable people, selecting the best to breed. they call all the shots, from beginning to end.

it's a breeders sport. they need to change the title from thoroughbred racehorse to breedhorse. that's all anyone seems interested in anymore. big fees, big syndication deals.

Most stakes horses out there are not worth tens of millions. A very high percentage of them can make more on the track than they will be worth for breeding. It is only a very small percentage of horses whose trainer's every move is to best maximize the horse's value for breeding.

So to say that this is a different times with regards to trainers' goals, that's simply not true. It may be true with well less than 1% of the horses out there but it is not true with most horses. Most stakes horses are not worth tens of millions of dollars for breeding. The goal of every trainer out there is for his horses to make as much money as they can on the track. The only exception to this rule is the rare horse that is worth millions for breeding.

Most horses who run are hurt in some way, that is a fact. This is the unfortunate part of our business. There is no question that there are many trainers that do insensitive and dangerous things to horses by running them with certain conditions which could border on criminal. There would be no racing if only completely sound horses would be aloud to run. Sometimes a simple quarter crack could turn into a catestrophic injury by slightly altering a horse running style. Is that criminal or is it a judgement call gone wrong?

also, used to be that breeders bred to race. they were running the offspring of the broodmares and stallions they had developed. showing off what they had done, looking for racing success to show the world what they had done as far as breeding a better horse. those days are long gone. most are commercial operations, just another business venture.

Your absolutely right. This is why the two year old sales are so hard to stomach

all those crooked foals, send them to the vet, fix 'em up and no one the wiser. and everyone wants in the game, so it's only going to get worse! gotta provide product for the consumer!!

Yes, everything you are saying is true.

But with regard to Afleet alex, I certainly don't think that Ritchey thought that Alex had a fracture before the Belmont. They discovered the injury after the Belmont and they are guessing that he sustained the injury in the Preakness. That is their best guess. They don't know it for sure.

Rupert-I never implied or wrote in any previous threads that Ritchey thought Alex had a fracture before the Belmont. Only that AA was injured to some degree in the Preakness. This of course is all speculation on everybody's part. I just think the connections know their horse well and think they would know better than all of us.

All that really matters is how the bettors feel about it. As long as the bettors like it, that's all that matters. I'm a relatively big bettor. I'm not saying whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, but if I like a horse
alot, I'll bet somwehere between $500 and $1000 on him.

Didn't you say that you're not even a bettor? It only matters what the bettors think. They're the ones who keep the sport going.

If I wanted to check on how a candidate was going to do in an election, I would poll people who were going to vote. I wouldn't poll people who are not going to vote. That wouldn't give me any information.

I'm not putting you down. My point is that if you are only a fan and not a bettor, then what is important to you may be entirely different from what is important to a bettor. As a bettor, I want to see horses have plenty of time between races. Then I have more confidence that the horse will fire. I'm usually not going to make a big bet on a horse that I feel is coming back too soon even if I think the horse is the best horse in the race, the reason being that I will not have confidence that the horse will run his best if he hasn't had enough rest.

You gave us three horses from 20 years ago that were by reasonable definition not raced sparingly: multiple times they had come back on short rest and two of them had 10+ starts at 3. Your job was to come up with horses that were major stakes horses at 2, 3 and 4 which were raced sparingly. Perhaps this battle is mainly over respective definitions of "sparingly" but I will define "sparingly" as "typical of 21st century G1 horses - fewer than 4 starts at 2, maybe a half-dozen starts per year thereafter spaced widely." After all, this whole thread is about what widely spaced schedules have done to racing. Have at it. Find us some.

In the meantime, I'll trot out some examples of horses who somehow, miraculously, survived campaigns you say that horses can't handle.

The old American Racing Manuals had an interesting feature. They used to include the past performances of all the horses rated on the Experimental and Free handicaps in the early 1960s. Let's see what kind of race records that the horses who were good enough to make the Experimental Handicap at 2 and the Free Handicap at 3 and 4 had:

Foals of 1957
Colts and Geldings
All Hands - 9 starts at 2, 17 starts at 3, 13 starts at 4
April Skies - 9 starts at 2, 23 starts at 3, 18 starts at 4
Bourbon Prince - 12 stars at 2, 11 starts at 3, 15 starts at 4
Conestoga - 11 starts at 2, 17 starts at 3, 9 starts at 4
Count Amber - 15 starts at 2, 17 starts at 3, 10 starts at 4
Heroshogala - 15 starts at 2, 21 starts at 3, 21 starts at 4
New Policy - 11 starts at 2, 16 starts at 3, 12 starts at 4
Pied d'Or - 13 starts at 2, 19 starts at 3, 21 starts at 4
Run for Nurse - 21 starts at 2, 18 starts at 3, 19 starts at 4
T.V. Lark - 14 starts at 2, 23 starts at 3, 18 starts at 4
Fillies
Airmans Guide - 6 starts at 2, 4 starts at 3, 10 starts at 4
Darling June - 11 starts at 2, 10 starts at 3, 15 starts at 4
Evening Glow - 7 starts at 2, 5 starts at 3, 17 starts at 4
Make Sail - 4 starts at 2, 19 starts at 3, 18 starts at 4
My Dear Girl - 7 starts at 2, 11 starts at 3, 2 starts at 4
Rash Statement - 12 starts at 2, 17 starts at 3, 17 starts at 4
Sarcastic - 8 starts at 2, 14 starts at 3, 10 starts at 4
Undulation - 3 starts at 2, 10 starts at 3, 4 starts at 4

Foals of 1958
Colts and Geldings
Beau Prince - 11 starts at 2, 18 starts at 3, 14 starts at 4
Bluescope - 7 starts at 2, 16 starts at 3, 14 starts at 4
Carry Back - 21 starts at 2, 16 starts at 3, 18 starts at 4
Crozier - 6 starts at 2, 15 starts at 3, 9 starts at 4
Editorialist - 12 starts at 2, 14 starts at 3, 18 starts at 4
Garwol - 18 starts at 2, 16 starts at 3, 26 starts at 4
Globemaster - 11 starts at 2, 10 starts at 3, 6 starts at 4
Guadalcanal - 4 starts at 2, 10 starts at 3, 15 starts at 4
Hitting Away - 3 starts at 2, 15 starts at 3, 19 starts at 4
Olden Times - 6 starts at 2, 9 starts at 3, 13 starts at 4
Try Cash - 8 starts at 2, 16 starts at 3, 21 starts at 4
Vapor Whirl - 18 starts at 2, 15 starts at 3, 4 starts at 4
Fillies
Counter Call - 5 starts at 2, 9 starts at 3, 16 starts at 4
Mighty Fair - 8 starts at 2, 27 starts at 3, 16 starts at 4
My Portrait - 10 starts at 2, 17 starts at 3, 19 starts at 4
Play Time - 9 starts at 2, 12 starts at 3, 15 starts at 4
Primonetta - 4 starts at 2, 11 starts at 3, 10 starts at 4
Shuette - 8 starts at 2, 18 starts at 3, 18 starts at 4
Smashing Gail - 8 starts at 2, 11 starts at 3, 7 starts at 4
Times Two - 11 starts at 2, 18 starts at 3, 22 starts at 4

Foals of 1959
Colts and Geldings
Admiral's Voyage - 11 starts at 2, 14 starts at 3, 15 starts at 4
Decidedly - 8 starts at 2, 12 starts at 3, 13 starts at 4
Doc Jocoy - 8 starts at 2, 16 starts at 3, 5 starts at 4
Donut King - 14 starts at 2, 7 starts at 3, 10 starts at 4
Greek Money - 16 starts at 2, 12 starts at 3, 7 starts at 4
Jaipur - 7 starts at 2, 10 starts at 3, 2 starts at 4
Native Diver - 5 starts at 2, 11 starts at 3, 15 starts at 4
Ridan - 7 starts at 2, 13 starts at 3, 3 starts at 4
Smart - 20 starts at 2, 19 starts at 3, 15 starts at 4
Sunrise County - 11 starts at 2, 10 starts at 3, 13 starts at 4
Times Roman - 11 starts at 2, 16 starts at 3, 11 starts at 4
Fillies
All Brandy - 11 starts at 2, 12 starts at 3, 12 starts at 4
Bramalea - 10 starts at 2, 18 starts at 3, 10 starts at 4
Cicada - 16 starts at 2, 17 starts at 3, 8 starts at 4
Firm Policy - 6 starts at 2, 10 starts at 3, 5 starts at 4
Royal Patrice - 5 starts at 2, 23 starts at 3, 8 starts at 4
Savaii - 7 starts at 2, 12 starts at 3, 22 starts at 4
Tamarona - 10 starts at 2, 19 starts at 3, 18 starts at 4
Upswept - 7 starts at 2, 12 starts at 3, 11 starts at 4

Some of these horses appeared at 5 and beyond on the Free Handicap, but I'm just looking at 2-3-4YO form.

Of course these horses are products of another time: back when US thoroughbreds raced an average of over 10 times a year (vs. 6.5 today) and training intent was quite different. But you would have us believe that it's just plain not possible to have 10-15+ start seasons at any level, let alone among better stakes horses. You're wrong. The horses can do it, if that's the trainer's intent and they do it right.

I could go on, but I actually do have other things I should be doing today. I'm going to assume that you get the point. Even though there are a few horses on these lists who were raced in a relatively "sparing" manner, that does not change the fact that there were many horses capable of running at a decent stakes level at 2-3-4 during these three sample years and most of them were raced anything but sparingly.

True enough, we breed with complete disregard for soundness. It would help if we expected enough of racehorses that unsound horses who can barely stay in training were not able to accomplish enough to become attractive breeding stock. Your "sparing" campaigns propagate weakness by not selecting against it.

(continued)

(continued from previous post)

If you have a horse who is already unsound, of course you do not race or train. You put him away until he's right and spend the time it's going to take before he's ready to approach speed work again. (That could be several months if he's gone more than a month or so without work at near top speed.) If he's never going to be reasonably right, given that most athletes of any description have minor issues, retire him. If his career was shortened by inherent problems that may be congenital, geld him. But it's dead wrong that avoiding high speed work is the way to prevent injury in the horse. You want to prevent athletic injury in the racehorse? Don't race him. If you are going to race a horse, you are morally obligated to use only specimens who can handle the demand and then train them in an appropriate manner to do that which we ask of them, and researchers tell us that nothing prepares a horse for high speed work except high speed work.

There is nothing more important in all of horse racing than to ensure the best possible safety for its equine participants. Without horses who can competently and safely race, there is no horse racing. No sport. No gambling vehicle, nothing. And the horses have no say about their involvement; they can do nothing but rely upon us to do the right thing by them. It's inexcusable to pursue policies which either directly or indirectly result in increased injury risk to racehorses. It is impossible to construct a humane argument supporting a practice which ultimately causes more horses to get hurt than some other alternate practice. If ever it can be demonstrated a given practice correlates to more injury than some other practice, those of us in any position to study the matter are obligated to investigate, and, if necessary, recommend the abandonment of - or at least seriously question - bad practices.

Is that all ivory-tower stuff? You bet. Here in the real world, money matters more than the risk of racehorses getting hurt and there are a lot of practices that are likely detrimental to horses which are all about lining pockets. Until those practices no longer bring in the money, there will be little impetus to change them. I can stand here and shout in the darkness for the rest of my natural life to no avail if that doesn't happen. But I know that I'm doing the right thing by looking for answers and speaking up when I think I have something to contribute.

I am often accused of being on the side of trying to break down horses because I realize that among other things, light racing schedules are associated with injury-shortened careers. Yes, that could be because physically troubled animals are raced less often, but it doesn't explain - if racing is inherently destructive to horses - why sounder horses that race more often are not necessarily compromised by their more strenuous campaigns. I've been studying this problem for over 15 years and I still don't have an answer. I am always working on studying various risk factors to refine what is, and isn't, likely to be part of the problem. (I just discovered last night, for example, that over a recent nine-year period, horses which are destined to break down in a race average about a month younger in age than the general population when they have their first start in a race at a distance more than a mile.) But what is definitely part of the problem is refusal to accept that there is a problem, that it's getting worse, and that it could possibly be associated with any of an endless list of changes that have occurred since there was less of a problem. When most people realize that they're on the wrong road, they turn around and go back to look for where they made a wrong turn. In horse racing, no one seems remotely interested in where the wrong turn was, or where the right road is now - they just keep on going, or even turn off in new, even more wrong, directions, while inventing new destinations as they go to justify their actions. It's astonishing how many people who do sincerely care for the welfare of the horse are so dead-set on persevering with methods that seem comparatively less successful at keeping racehorses safe and sound. And I'm the bad guy (er, girl). Go figure.

Theoretically, knowing that horses are perfectly capable of much more than we ask of them today, the fact that so many of them are too unsound to train or run indicates a problem. In a horse without predisposing physical issues, that problem very possibly lies in the training, racing and other preparation to which it was subjected before that unsoundness surfaced. Although I have come to some conclusions of what are good ideas and what aren't, I'm not a horse trainer and I'm not going to lecture on what training should be. However, the people who trained the horses on the lists above are horse trainers and while most of them are not alive today to tell us their views, ample records exist for us to inspect and theorize how these - and countless other horses of lesser repute - did just fine through campaigns some would have us believe are impossible.

Seabiscuit raced 35 times as a 2YO.

In his final two starts as a 7YO ... the 88th and 89th races of his career ... he won G1 stakes.

Todd Pletcher has had hundreds of opportunities to develop some of the world's best-bred colts into champions ...

... and he has failed every single time.

He has never once developed a colt into a consisitent winner of G1 races at classic distances on dirt ... probably because he thinks that horses need 46 weeks between races.

His record is almost as embarrassing as the fact that you cited him as an example.

Cy Young won 511 games,,,pitched 7000+ innings...last one as a 44 year old...were you there for it?

I would like to take in Todd Pletchers yearly income on stallions seasons from horses he's trained.

There?

He was catching.

[quote=Phalaris1913]You gave us three horses from 20 years ago that were by reasonable definition not raced sparingly: multiple times they had come back on short rest and two of them had 10+ starts at 3. Your job was to come up with horses that were major stakes horses at 2, 3 and 4 which were raced sparingly. Perhaps this battle is mainly over respective definitions of "sparingly" but I will define "sparingly" as "typical of 21st century G1 horses - fewer than 4 starts at 2, maybe a half-dozen starts per year thereafter spaced widely." After all, this whole thread is about what widely spaced schedules have done to racing. Have at it. Find us some.

In the meantime, I'll trot out some examples of horses who somehow, miraculously, survived campaigns you say that horses can't handle.

The old American Racing Manuals had an interesting feature. They used to include the past performances of all the horses rated on the Experimental and Free handicaps in the early 1960s. Let's see what kind of race records that the horses who were good enough to make the Experimental Handicap at 2 and the Free Handicap at 3 and 4 had:

Foals of 1957
Colts and Geldings
All Hands - 9 starts at 2, 17 starts at 3, 13 starts at 4
April Skies - 9 starts at 2, 23 starts at 3, 18 starts at 4
Bourbon Prince - 12 stars at 2, 11 starts at 3, 15 starts at 4
Conestoga - 11 starts at 2, 17 starts at 3, 9 starts at 4
Count Amber - 15 starts at 2, 17 starts at 3, 10 starts at 4
Heroshogala - 15 starts at 2, 21 starts at 3, 21 starts at 4
New Policy - 11 starts at 2, 16 starts at 3, 12 starts at 4
Pied d'Or - 13 starts at 2, 19 starts at 3, 21 starts at 4
Run for Nurse - 21 starts at 2, 18 starts at 3, 19 starts at 4
T.V. Lark - 14 starts at 2, 23 starts at 3, 18 starts at 4
Fillies
Airmans Guide - 6 starts at 2, 4 starts at 3, 10 starts at 4
Darling June - 11 starts at 2, 10 starts at 3, 15 starts at 4
Evening Glow - 7 starts at 2, 5 starts at 3, 17 starts at 4
Make Sail - 4 starts at 2, 19 starts at 3, 18 starts at 4
My Dear Girl - 7 starts at 2, 11 starts at 3, 2 starts at 4
Rash Statement - 12 starts at 2, 17 starts at 3, 17 starts at 4
Sarcastic - 8 starts at 2, 14 starts at 3, 10 starts at 4
Undulation - 3 starts at 2, 10 starts at 3, 4 starts at 4

You misunderstood what BB was asking me. He was saying that there are no good trainers any more and that the proof is that these trainers can't keep their horses in top form in their 2,3, and 4 year old years. I was saying that there are tons of horses out there that run great in their 2, 3, and 4 year old years. There may not be any horses that have won both the BC Juvenille and KY Derby but there have been plenty of horses that ran really well for at least two if not three years straight years. Off the top of my head, I was trying to think of BC Classic horses that ran well in Triple Crown races. There have been a ton of them. The only reason I named Alysheba and Ferdidnad is beacuse I remebered that they ran against each ohter in the BC classic when one of them was a 3 year old and the other was a 4 year old and BB asked about 4 year olds in addition to 3 year olds.

I don't know why you keep bringing up what happened 50 years ago. Nobody disputes what happened 50 years ago. These are different times. In baseball, I think pitchers used to pitch more 50 years ago. I don't know why. I think they pitch less now, yet they still seem to have a ton of problems with their arms. I'm not sure why but I don't think the solution to arm problesm today would be for the pitchers to pitch even more. I'm sure that would make their arms worse.

Very, very naive.

All it takes is one big syndication deal ... and the trainer's share is enough to fix him up for life.

Sure it's nice to train winners of $1,000,000 and make $100,000 ... but it's a lot of hard work and you certainly can't be financially secure from it.

But get that $40,000,000 syndication deal ... and you make a few million in one swoop ... the equivalent of 25 years of toiling in the salt mines.

That's the main objective of today's trainers of G1-level horses ... win that one big one ... and start the negotiations.

No ... remember I'm from Brooklyn ...

... I gave all my advice to Dazzy Vance.

Bingo ...

... that's exactly the business he's in.

Why develop horses into professional athletes at classic distances ... when you can make big bucks foisting off fragile sprinters on eager breeders ... who know they in turn can clean up with their pretty foals at yearling auctions attended by the ever-multiplying mega-rich of the world?

Ha Ha Ha ...

... the joke's on you ... I'm left-handed ... I was playing first base.

You are right. I agree with your quote, "The fact that so many horses are too unsound to train or run indicates a problem." I agree with you 100%. I don't know what the problem is either. I don't know if it's the breed or the track surfaces or what. But I do know that there aren't very many sound horses out there. Many of these horses were horses who were trained really hard early in their two year old year at the two year old sales. So you can't say that they are unsound because of a lack of activity as a 2 year old.

All of my experience as both a handicapper and as an owner/racing manager over the past 25 years is that the harder they are on 2 year olds, the less chance there is that they will be winning big races as an older horse. I am sure that trend will continue. You won't see many horses winning the BC Classic that ran 20 times between their 2 and 3 year old years.

By the way, I think a relatively sound 3 year old or a 4 year old can run more than 6 times a year. I don't see any reason why you can't run them 7-8 times a year. I would always give them at least 4 weeks between races.

And yet ... and yet ...

... you still haven't provided a single example of a colt who has been developed into a multiple-year champion or near champion ... by a trainer who has employed the "spacing" and "fresh horse" method.

You're completely avoiding the issue ...

... we're provided dozens and dozens of examples of G1-level horses who thrived on 12, 15, even 20 starts per year over multiple years ...

... and yet you can't provide a single example of one who has thrived on the "spaced out" regimen.

Who do you think is getting the best of this discussion?

You obviously did not read my post. I was not talking about horses that are worth tens of millions. I was talking about the other 99.9% of horses out there. By the way, even with the huge deals the trainers usually don't make big money unless the owners are very generous. The trainer will usually just get 1 share in the horse. With a really good horse like Saint Liam, Dutrow would make much more money if the horse kept on running. He's not going to make much from having 1 share in the horse. How much is 1 share worth in Saint Liam worth? Maybe $100,000. When the horse won the BC Classic, Dutrow made $300,000 in one day.

That's not the way it works ...

... trainers usually get 2 - 4 shares ... making a $1,000,000 per share syndication worth $2-4 million for the trainer ...

... and it takes most trainers and awful lot of years to make that sort of money.

Meanwhile ... where is your football-field-long list of horses who have had multi-year championships or near-championships from a race-spacing regimen?

What are you talking about? Practically every single horse out there does it my way. Pleasantly Perfect, Ghostzapper, Saint Liam, etc.

Practically every horse that wins the BC Classic these days is lightly raced. A lot of the good 2 and 3 year olds never make it to the BC Classic because they are either retired or mishandled. I think that the Triple Crown races are practically criminal in this day and age. I think it's nuts to run a horse in the Derby, then two weeks later in the Preakness, and then 3 weeks later at 1 1/2 miles in the Belmont. It kills most horses. Even an iron horse like smarty Jones couldn't handle it. He came out of it hurt. Afleet Alex came out of it hurt. Funny Cide was never really the same. I don't think War Emblem was ever the same. They need to add an extra week between each Triple Crown race. I think this would make a huge difference.

Why would you want a multi-year championship when so much money is available in the breeding shed without it ?

I mean you want evidence to prove your theory even though you agree that there is no incentive to campaign like you want horses to.

I wouldn't suggest this is the only reason, by any stretch of the imagination, but isn't there some concern that one reason many of these horses have such well spaced campaigns is often the recovery time from whatever medication they may be using is substantial?

But the truth of the matter is most of those horses could have come back as 4 year olds if there was not so much money available as stallion prospects. Their success level at 4 would be unknown.
BB wants evidence that he is right and you are wrong but there is no evidence because the game changed. Like it or not, for better or worse, the game changed.

Since we're on the discussion of soundness, I want to know which stallions are the best to go to for SOUNDNESS. The day I own a racehorse, I want one that isn't fragile.

Recovery time from the medication itself?

The stallion is only 1/2 of the equation.

In essense. Basically I'm suspicious in general, and the fact that we often see dramatic improvements in horses who subsequently hold that form for one, or maybe two races, and then often disappear for what may be quite a while, if not forever, makes me think that medications that improve performance also take a heavy toll on the horses. Thus I figure the spacing between races is somewhat related.

I'm probably just overly paranoid.

None of those trainers were involved with Alysheba, et al, nor were they examples of products of current training regimes. Not to put words in his mouth, but I pretty sure BB doesn't doubt that horses can be good at 2, 3 and 4 - the question is whether the current infatuation with racing horses as infrequently as possible has a track record of producing horses that can.

I ran a query and got the names of the horses who have won or placed at the G1 level at 2, 3 and 4 who were born over the last 10 years (picked arbitrarily to reflect a trend that is very recent). It's not a very long list and it's not full of horses who seemingly fit the "sparing" model of a couple of starts at 2 and distantly spaced, handful of starts thereafter. Perhaps you would have in mind a different set of criteria and if you do, I can run queries like that until the proverbial cows come home.

I brought up older data, in this case from the early 1960s, because it is pertinent, as much as you'd like to think otherwise. Apologists for the current situation are very fond of going on about how different everything is now, as if racing before last Tuesday might as well have been heat racing contested by offspring of Lexington out of Glencoe mares. Of course it's different - it's different because of accumulated changes in practice. We are merely seeing the latest development of four decades of unhealthy trends toward big money for bloodstock and reduced racing of horses. Do you think the horses you're betting on are the first-generation descendants of horses placed on this planet by aliens? No, they're the second, third and fourth generation descendants of horses of the 1960s who were perfectly capable of doing the things that BB and I are talking about. Despite the best efforts to breed horses that should be culled, a good number of today's horses could also do these things if they had been prepared properly to do them. The reason that they cannot is in large part because preparation, training and racing of horses has changed, not because the horses have changed. In 40 years, there has not been massive genetic drift from "horses that can" to "horses that can't." It doesn't happen that way.

The same physics that applied to thoroughbred racehorses of the 1960s apply to thoroughbred racehorses of 2006. If racing were inherently destructive, then it would've been just as destructive to those foals of the late 1950s as it is now. Why wasn't it? That's the question. There was nothing magical about those horses that made them impervious to injury, there was just a combination of factors that made them better able to withstand the job of being a racehorse.

Not all of those factors can be laid at the feet of training practices. As I said in an early post on this thread, perhaps those foals bred by breeder/owners left to play at pasture instead of stalled arrived at the track with stronger legs. Maybe the tracks were softer. There are different drugs in play today, but don't forget that bute was legal in some jurisdictions when the horses on those lists were running, and in those days, drug testing wasn't nearly as able to detect violations with the drugs that were available.

However, there are conspicuous differences in the way that well-intended horses were trained and raced and it is reasonable to investigate which, if any, of those changes are correlated to longer, more successful, more injury-free careers. To my eyes, these are glaring changes, and there are experimentally determined facts about horses which call into question the wisdom of some of these changes.

I understand that, thanks. ;)

Let me rephrase myself. IF I had a nice, SOUND mare to breed, which stallion should I consider?