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Originally Posted by Riot
I agree. We know horses raced at two are sounder, last longer, and break down significantly less often than those who had light or no race work at two (adaptive remodeling); we also know there are clear limits to the type of work that is optimal for future soundness regarding speed and distance.
Hard to quantitate specifically how the practices that come before "full track life" influence, but would be great to do (bringing weanlings up for sale vs field weanlings, putting 60 days of exercise on a yearling vs a 21-day quick pretty-up, sending the long yearling right on to training then being given a break vs not, keeping the long yearling at a training center vs track training them, etc)
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I have observed that horses who are at the top of their game at two (War Pass) are done by three.
I know there are exceptions (Street Sense)
But Curlin didn't make his first start until he was 3 and went on to have a nice career. I don't recall hearing too much about soundness being a problem for him.