[Thunder Gulch]

There is no simple answer, and reasons may vary from case to case, but I do think that the trainers getting on board with "sheet" style patterning for their horses has been a huge detriment. That doesn't mean their method doesn't work, but it is changing the approach a lot of trainers are taking. A lot of these arguments presented go back 20 years, breeding, surfaces, medication, juvenile training/racing, but I think that everyone trying to space races for a "peak" effort is the biggest problem. It has only been 15 years since Cigar was 10 for 10 and Mineshaft won 7 of 9 just seven short years ago....However, when Ghostzapper ran off the page multiple times in spaced races (by necessity) in 2004, the winds started to shift. It was just a few years later that Street Sense wins the Derby off of 2 starts, which was the first time that happened in 25 years. Now the argument can be made that these carefully mapped programs were protecting the investment from the perils of racing, but regardless of why, everyone starts buying into the race-rest-train-race programs. Then you get the wildly popular Zenyatta team protecting a streak, and the notion of racing into shape is completely gone. The "tightener" and allowance prep races are a thing of the past.