fix to short term racing careers
 

As we all know racing has come under much scrutiny lately due to some catastrophes on the racetrack when the whole world was watching. A number of people blame the breeding programs and the pressure on winning early.

This seems absurdly simple but:

What if you moved the prestige and of course the same money to 4 year old and up racing? Leave the current 3 year old traditions but offer the commercial breeders an option to breed a sounder horse with like returns. If the money is the same (or better yet significantly more) in 4 year old seasons, more than likely some will develop patience rather than the current breed and rush young horses. I also think it is possible some investors would find sires and mares who get older runners more appealing in the long run.

It would take time, $ and committment but would show good faith and more respect to the animals

seems like a pretty good idea to me.

Huh?

It's all a matter of opinion, but I would prefer it if we could only allow horses to breed when they are five years old. Maybe some exceptions. . .
And also to have some big races with huge purses for horse who are five years old or older.

Absolutely. I've always liked the idea of a Senior division. Like the Senior tour in golf. Let's spread the stakes money around. The factory farms just suck up all the graded stakes money now with their devious tactics.

Who will pay for 2 years of training before your first maiden try???

@ 3,000 a month, not many.

How about stopping these 4 fl, 5 and 5.5 races. Also no 9 sec. 2 year olds in training sales.

i don't think the idea is to prohibit racing at 2 or 3, just to make some prestigious races with good money involved restricted to 4 and up.

This is the best idea I've heard, but, and I'm certainly no legal expert, I'm not sure it would ever hold up in court.

Of course it would; if the Jockey Club would decide that the rule for registered Thoroughbreds is that they can't have been fathered by a horse younger than five, then that would be the rule. As it is, they made a rule that Thoroughbreds registered by them must be produced via natural cover, not artificial insemination. Other equestrian disciplines use AI all the time. Law doesn't enter into it, unless a person could argue he or she was being discriminated against on basis of race or gender. Since the registrants aren't human, and the rules would apply equally to all Thoroughbreds, regardless of color ;) , there's no grounds.

I agree; restricting breeding to five and up would provide more of a financial motivation to keep running horses- if there's not money to be made in breeding, why not race? The catch would be- A) the breeding industry having short enough memories that a horse would lose enough value by being mothballed, so to speak, for two years so that it wouldn't make sense to just retire and wait 2 years and B) with a horse like Big Brown valued at $50 million, that makes for a very, very expensive insurance premium, so who knows if owners other than the very rich would be able to afford to keep running their stars.