"Spaced" Races And "Fresh" Horses Are Killing The Sport

[Rupert Pupkin]

[quote=Phalaris1913]You gave us three horses from 20 years ago that were by reasonable definition not raced sparingly: multiple times they had come back on short rest and two of them had 10+ starts at 3. Your job was to come up with horses that were major stakes horses at 2, 3 and 4 which were raced sparingly. Perhaps this battle is mainly over respective definitions of "sparingly" but I will define "sparingly" as "typical of 21st century G1 horses - fewer than 4 starts at 2, maybe a half-dozen starts per year thereafter spaced widely." After all, this whole thread is about what widely spaced schedules have done to racing. Have at it. Find us some.

In the meantime, I'll trot out some examples of horses who somehow, miraculously, survived campaigns you say that horses can't handle.

The old American Racing Manuals had an interesting feature. They used to include the past performances of all the horses rated on the Experimental and Free handicaps in the early 1960s. Let's see what kind of race records that the horses who were good enough to make the Experimental Handicap at 2 and the Free Handicap at 3 and 4 had:

Foals of 1957
Colts and Geldings
All Hands - 9 starts at 2, 17 starts at 3, 13 starts at 4
April Skies - 9 starts at 2, 23 starts at 3, 18 starts at 4
Bourbon Prince - 12 stars at 2, 11 starts at 3, 15 starts at 4
Conestoga - 11 starts at 2, 17 starts at 3, 9 starts at 4
Count Amber - 15 starts at 2, 17 starts at 3, 10 starts at 4
Heroshogala - 15 starts at 2, 21 starts at 3, 21 starts at 4
New Policy - 11 starts at 2, 16 starts at 3, 12 starts at 4
Pied d'Or - 13 starts at 2, 19 starts at 3, 21 starts at 4
Run for Nurse - 21 starts at 2, 18 starts at 3, 19 starts at 4
T.V. Lark - 14 starts at 2, 23 starts at 3, 18 starts at 4
Fillies
Airmans Guide - 6 starts at 2, 4 starts at 3, 10 starts at 4
Darling June - 11 starts at 2, 10 starts at 3, 15 starts at 4
Evening Glow - 7 starts at 2, 5 starts at 3, 17 starts at 4
Make Sail - 4 starts at 2, 19 starts at 3, 18 starts at 4
My Dear Girl - 7 starts at 2, 11 starts at 3, 2 starts at 4
Rash Statement - 12 starts at 2, 17 starts at 3, 17 starts at 4
Sarcastic - 8 starts at 2, 14 starts at 3, 10 starts at 4
Undulation - 3 starts at 2, 10 starts at 3, 4 starts at 4

You misunderstood what BB was asking me. He was saying that there are no good trainers any more and that the proof is that these trainers can't keep their horses in top form in their 2,3, and 4 year old years. I was saying that there are tons of horses out there that run great in their 2, 3, and 4 year old years. There may not be any horses that have won both the BC Juvenille and KY Derby but there have been plenty of horses that ran really well for at least two if not three years straight years. Off the top of my head, I was trying to think of BC Classic horses that ran well in Triple Crown races. There have been a ton of them. The only reason I named Alysheba and Ferdidnad is beacuse I remebered that they ran against each ohter in the BC classic when one of them was a 3 year old and the other was a 4 year old and BB asked about 4 year olds in addition to 3 year olds.

I don't know why you keep bringing up what happened 50 years ago. Nobody disputes what happened 50 years ago. These are different times. In baseball, I think pitchers used to pitch more 50 years ago. I don't know why. I think they pitch less now, yet they still seem to have a ton of problems with their arms. I'm not sure why but I don't think the solution to arm problesm today would be for the pitchers to pitch even more. I'm sure that would make their arms worse.