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Originally Posted by moodwalker
I'm not sure why they don't run more. But I don't think it is because they couldn't.
I respect your opinion that Angara's campaign might have taken its toll on her.
But I felt that some races just didn't "set up" for her and/or she cycled out of form last year. The thought of Biancone "running her into the ground" never entered my mind and I wondered why you stated that unless you knew she was broken down after last year or something.
I would prefer that horses run every 14-21 days in a campaign and then get a lay up. It seems to me that this is impossible due to our year long racing season in America, and maybe that is why trainers space the races out so much.
Another opinion I have on the long layoffs between races with "good horses" is the fear of losing due to an impact later in a career at stud.
Maybe the owners of really nice horses don't want them having blips on their record if they can help it now due to the current breeding market.
I could be way off on that though, let me know your opinion of this one Richi..
If you had a really nice colt who had won 3 out of 3 and looked to be pretty tough, would you fret about him losing a race/races due to the impact on his stud fee at a later date.
Let me clarify that I wasn't trying to offend you with my Angara statements, it just never entered my mind that Biancone was abusing her last year and I didn't understand why you thought that. I think he was just maximizing her profit margin with all of the checks she picked up, and I don't think she will earn as much this year..even with the G1 yesterday.
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A perfect example of a guy who tries to run his horses every 2-3 weeks is Lukas. He has great horses yet his winning percentage is very low. His win percentage is 9%. One of the main reasons his winning percentage is so low is because he runs his horses so often. Ron Ellis is exactly the opposite. Most of his horses only run about 5 times a year. He won at a 29% clip last year. He would be the first to tell you that one of the main reasons his winning percentage is so high is because he gives his horses plenty of time between races. Ellis probably has less than half the starts per horse than Lukas.
It's pretty much the same for guys like Frankel and Pletcher. Their win percentage is always around 25%. Their win percentage would drop like crazy if they started running their horses every 2-3 weeks. Not only that, their horses wouldn't last. Frankel has spoken many times publicly about how horses need plenty of rest between races and that if you wheel them back in 3 weeks, they will often times give a sub-par effort.