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Originally Posted by Cannon Shell
Dont break what dont need fixin'. The TC has allure because it is hard to win.
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I happen to think it's broke when year after year, we are seeing our the majority of our top 3yos not even able to finish the year. Just in the last decade, we've seen the following classic race winners not even finish the year:
Charismatic
Red Bullet
Monarchos
Point Given
Empire Maker
Smarty Jones
Giacomo
Afleet Alex
Barbaro
Jazil
Rags to Riches
Big Brown
That's 12 out of 23 horses that didn't finish out their 3yo season. To be fair, Jazil and Giacomo did come back the next season. And I already know that some will mention that it wasn't really injury that took Point Given and Empire Maker out. Even taking those four out, it's still 8 of 23 or 35%. Four of them didn't even make it past the Belmont and a couple more only had one more race. Go back a couple more seasons and you could add Real Quiet and Silver Charm. This doesn't even count all of the horses that are knocked out that don't win a TC race like Bluegrass Cat and Lion Heart and Bellamy Road and all of the ones that are knocked out on the TC trail like Second of June and Old Fashioned and I Want Revenge and Event of the Year. For me, the attrition rate is much to high and I think that the whole thing needs to be revamped, not just the TC races but the preps and everything.
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The real horses of the year (1986-2020)
Manila, Java Gold, Alysheba, Sunday Silence, Go for Wand, In Excess, Paseana, Kotashaan, Holy Bull, Cigar, Alphabet Soup, Formal Gold, Skip Away, Artax, Tiznow, Point Given, Azeri, Candy Ride, Smarty Jones, Ghostzapper, Invasor, Curlin, Zenyatta, Zenyatta, Goldikova, Havre de Grace, Wise Dan, Wise Dan, California Chrome, American Pharoah, Arrogate, Gun Runner, Accelerate, Maximum Security, Gamine
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