Tradition

[King Glorious]

How important is it? Seems like whenever people like me bring up the idea of changing the TC series, the first words from the opponents are about tradition. They want the TC series to stay the same. Even though the way we breed the horses has changed. Even though the way we train them has changed. Even though the way we race them has changed. Even though the surfaces we run them over has changed. Today's horses can't carry the weights, they can't run as far, they can't run as often, and they can't run as long. Today's horses are being asked to do what yesterday's horses did even though everyone generally acknowledges that the horses are not the same. That just seems stupid to me.

We can cry and complain about the current state of the breed and wish that we could get them back to the way they were but that's not going to happen. That horse has left the barn and isn't coming back. The economics of the sport just won't allow that to happen. So changes have to be made in other ways. I was glad to hear about how France made some adaptions to their races. There has been talk of doing some changing to English racing too. These are countries with far more tradition than the U.S. Traditions can and should be altered if it's for the betterment of the game and of the horse.

People keep telling me that the changes I propose (shortening the races and spacing them out being the biggest ones), would make the TC easier to win. I think that's completely untrue. I think it would make it harder to win. In anything, limiting the number of qualified competitors makes the competition easier to win. I feel like a 9f Derby would be harder to win than a 10f one. At 10f, there's only going to be a few of the horses in the race that are suited to handle it. At 9f, more of them are suited for it so it would take a horse beating more horses that are running at a distance they can handle. More qualified competition would make it harder to win. Same thing with spacing the races out. Allowing more horses to return and run in peak condition would make the series less about survival of the fittest and more about showing who is the actual best.

Or maybe I'm wrong.