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Old 09-17-2007, 10:58 AM
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King Glorious King Glorious is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Beaumont, CA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind
Tough campaigns obviously can, and often do, wear horses down. The Belmont Stakes, for many horses in history ( less so now ), is the culmination of virtually an entire career of " prep " races. The fact that some horses need rest after that race is not a function of the Belmont whatsoever, it is merely the temporary end of a long and arduous journey.

What is interesting to me is that through the flawed arguments offered by some in this thread we have seen that, in fact, the Belmont has been the springboard for many major stakes over the following 18 months.
I'll tell u what I think and I'll wait for u to jump all over it but I think part of it is the effort it takes to win the race vs. being an also ran in the race. Take for example the Arc de Triomphe. Most people would be surprised to learn that no Arc winner has ever come over and won the BC Turf. Realizing that only four have tried it (Dancing Brave, Trempolino, Saumarez and Subotica) but it's still never been done. I believe that had one or more of those four won it, trainers wouldn't have stopped even trying. At the same time that they aren't able to complete the double, there have been several Arc also rans (High Chaparral twice, Daylami, In the Wings, Pilsudski, Shirocco) that have found Turf success. Why is that? I believe that the effort it takes to win some of these grueling test like the Arc and the Belmont, coming at the end of campaigns, takes a huge toll and leave horses more vulnerable to injuries.

U may say that the horses coming out of the Belmont may only need a rest. U are probably right. U've probably forgotten more about horse racing than I'll ever learn. But what I do know is that in the past seven years, we've gotten a combined total of six races and three wins post Belmont from the seven winners of the race in the remainder of their 3yo seasons. That's just not good. If it's not the Belmont, something is obviously going wrong these days.
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