Is 3 too much ?
 

i sent an e-mail to world reknowned pedigree expert Ellen Parker http://www.reines-de-course.com/ stating that 2 yr old Run Warrior Run (Desert Warrior) just won yesterday for the 3rd time at Del. 4-3-0-1...i mentioned that he is x3 to Spy Song. She replied that no 2 yr old should have run 3 races this time of year because the breed is too fragile.

That's crap. Different horses, different soundness.

Did you email her back and ask her when was the last time she looked at the PP's for Lawyer Ron's two year old season?

Hopefully she'll stick to being a pedigree expert and not a trainer.

Kodiak Kowboy has already started 6 times... i'd say he's doing alright.

She is absolutely 100% correct. I mean last year Street Sense made his 3rd start on September 10th. Look how that worked out. It absolutely ruined both his 2yo and his 3yo campaigns......unless you are one of those weird guys that thinks winning a bunch of G1 races is a good thing.

I'm world "reknowned."

Despite a pretty definitive study that showed that horses who raced at 2 had longer careers with more starts than horses who didn't, there is still a small but vocal number of people who contend that racing 2yos is wrong, because the animals are not mature enough.

Has nobody explained to that "small but vocal number of people" that they are flat wrong? Maybe somebody should.
They might want to tell them about Santa Claus too.

:eek: Aw man. ;)

In all seriousness it, to me, is like saying 15 and 16 yr olds shouldn't have jobs. Sure they'll probably do a better job and be more mature about it later but you have to take baby steps. They could royally screw up their life if they're too immature but when guided properly it works out.

I don't have anything against 2yo racing.

However, isn't it at least possible that those that race at 2 have longer careers due to the fact that those who don't race at 2 obviously have issues at least 98% of the time? I don't know many horses that don't race until 3 or later by design.

If it wasn't for the economics involved, as a group I think horses would be better off waiting longer to begin racing, or at the least racing less at 2. But I certainly understand that owners want to recoup some money sooner.

This sort of illustrates (baby steps) why I think 2-turn races before October are bad for 2yos. In the Good Old Days, nearly every major 2yo race was a 1-turn race - Breeders' Futurity (Beard course, 7f+), Kentucky Jockey Club S (8f CD chute), Remsen S (8f-Aqu chute), even the Laurel-Pimlico Futurity was a 1-turn 1 1/16 with a finish line a half-furlong beyond the normal finish line. Only the Garden State State S (disc in 1973) on the first weekend of November was a 2-turn race. Then came Oak Tree with the Norfolk (which wasn't a major race at the beginning) in mid-October. And its been downhill from there.

Nowadays we see them going 2-turns in AUGUST, for god's sake. Too much torque on immature joints. The Brits realize that classic candidates don't need to some extended distance to prepare at 2 - their championship races for 2yos and classic previews are the Dewhurst S (7f) and the Middle Park S (6f), with the 8f G1 mile race at Doncaster being more for pointing out future stayers (2-milers) and all are on the straight or around one Belmont-style turn.

I tend to agree we are pushing the young horses too much. I think that can in part explain the BC Juvenile Jinx. Yea, I know Street Sense won both the Juvenile and the Derby, but I also think he is an EXTRAORDINARY horse. I was amazed when I read Man O'War that he never raced more than 6 furlongs as a two year old. I haven't gone back and looked through Champions pps yet to see when 2YO races started to be run at distances around two turns but it is on my list of things to do, if I were to guess I would think it was around the birth of the BC as tracks felt they had to offer "Prep" races for the Juvenile.

Just my 2 cents.

First of all I really don't think the idea of having 2yos run a route of ground has anything to do with the Breeders Cup. The Norfolk has been run at 8.5 furlongs since 1970 and the Remsen has been run at 9f since 1973...etc. etc.
So 2yos were certainly running in stakes races at 8.5 furlongs and beyond well before 1984.
And how was it affecting them?
Well if you look at the Kentucky Derby winners from 1978-1983 (the six years right before the BC started) all six of them ran in stakes races going at least 8.5 furlongs or longer as 2yo. All six of them. Three of those six (Sunny's Halo, Pleasant Colony, and Genuine Risk) were stakes winners at 9f during their 2yo campaigns. It doesn't exactly seem like their 3yo campaigns were ruined does it?
If you look more recently, you see the exact same thing. The last three winners of the Kentucky Derby also ALL ran in stakes races going 8.5 furlongs as a 2yo.
Now, I am not one of those people who buys into those ridiculous "Derby angles" which say a horse MUST race a certain number of times at age two in order to have a chance to win the Derby. Those angles are all crap, and the Derby is just one example anyway. The point is that racing at 8.5f or beyond as a 2yo certainly does not - before or after the BC started - damage a horse's chance at having a good 3yo season.

It isn't the distance - it's the number of tight turns. And the extra gate-speed required to get into position for the turn coming up quickly. Repeatedly and too early in the season. The October and November 2-turn innovation doesn't seem to have made much difference, but shoving such races back into September and August does. And the reason this has happened? Trainers want to have preps over the BC Juvie distance 4-6 weeks out, whereas in the not too distant past, 2-3 weeks out would have been sufficient. IMHO the Juvie should be at the longest distance (up to 8.5f) that the track can handle around one turn. You may not recall, but the Hollywood Park track was enlarged to 9f just before the first BC was run and the Juvie was run at 8f around one turn.

As I understand it, and I could be wrong, a serious number of the fractures happen with the lead change. Could've sworn Ruffian had an issue with that and running on the wrong lead at the time of her injury. Turns would then have an impact and the younger horses running more turns would suffer greater strain. I wonder about starting the race on a turn and how much more stress that creates, if any.