Quote:
Originally Posted by ScottJ
The goal is to make the four and five year old seasons so valuable that horses remain in training to take a shot at the bigger prizes over a period of time. While strong sires might not truly be identified until a decade from now, the first steps would be taken to strengthen the sport's recognition, broaden media coverage into the later summer, strengthen bloodlines, and move the older horses from one glory day (Breeder's Cup) onto several at a national level.
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Are there really that many 3-year-olds retiring purely for stud dollars now, though? It seems like the breeding market hasn't really recovered from the economic downturn and a lot of the top 3-year-olds have been returning. The ones that have been retiring at 3 seem to either have an injury that will take long enough to recover from that a 4-year-old campaign would be abbreviated anyway, or to have already peaked (Orb looks up, blushes, looks down) and they don't want to further depreciate the horse's value.
As a fan, I of course love the idea of a TC for older horses, but it would be very hard to get three different tracks to coordinate races, and it would be hard to sustain public interest in races that would likely be 5 weeks apart each. Part of what makes the TC work for the general public is that it all happens in 5 weeks total.