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Originally Posted by ateamstupid
What the BC does is ENSURE that everyone has to face everyone else eventually, if only for one day, and that's a positive, not a negative. You really think that without the BC, we'd see the top older males facing each other over and over in each Grade I all year long? I don't. I think we'd see the top five or six horses constantly ducking each other in order to get the easiest G-I wins available. The BC says "hey, if you want the ultimate accolades, you've gotta face everyone eventually," and if that relegates the JCGC to a prep race, so be it. That's not ruining racing, it's improving it.
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I think your perspective is valid, but at the same time, its quite possible that the reason why owners are petrified to run their horses is because they want to keep them in one piece so they can make the BC. In that way, the BC would be found to be detrimental. Certainly before '84 there was no problem in getting good horses together for more than one race. Obviously, other factors are involved, such as the creation of numerous alternatives to traditional top races and the purse-bolstering of second tier races, which allow the connections to duck each other. And probably more important, the desire to tailor a racehorse's career with the breeding shed, not the trophy case, in mind (which often dictates a minimum of overall starts so as to maintain peak popularity).
Still, for all its good intentions, BC day itself is starting to get a bit out of hand, trying to get instant credibility for all these forced new races. The ironic part being that whereas the BC has tended to dilute the quality of the rest of the season's important races (because top horses duck each other or skip important starts to await BC day), these new races might end up doing the same to the regular BC races. Its quite possible that the Dirt Mile will hurt both the Sprint and Classic, the Female Sprint will weaken the Sprint, and the Juvenile Turf will draw foreign interest away from the dirt Juvenile.
As far as getting good horses together on a regular basis, I think the ACRS was a better idea, being more flexible to a horse's campaign where things like current form and race setup (distance, track, etc.) would play into where a horse winds up from start to start. Some very good horses are toast by BC day and end up just embarrassing themselves (eg Gentlemen), but are nonetheless pushed to the race because somehow there year is incomplete without a start there.