"Do We Need a Sturdier Racehorse?"

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

On a simple basis without considering the long term inbreeding complications of only having 25 stallions, absolutely you would have a better and stronger breed.

And there would be a much higher % to race than 1200. You would be taking out of the population the mares that have trouble foaling or foal weaker babies or old mares which have trouble doing both.

I don't understand why you are having a hard time understanding that breeding flawed horses leads to more flawed horses.

During this time sure the top horses are still top horses but the better horses are now spread thin because there is so much more racing than there used to be. So the lesser horses are now mixing into the higher class tracks horse populations as the good ones are further spread out. It is similar to the average baseball pitchers becoming much lower in ability as the leagues expanded. When there was 16 teams and 4 man rotations were the norm you had approx. 64 major league starters. Now that there are 32 teams and because so many lesser pitchers are needed to fill out the rosters 5 man rotations are the norm. That means there are 160 pitchers who call themselves major league starters. Does that mean Roy Halladay is not as good as he should be? No. Does that mean we might have discovered a guy who may have never gotten a chance in prior years? Probably. But the average major league starter is absolutely not as good in 2010 as they were in 1960. The guy who would be considered ML avg is ranked 80th. In 1960 the average ML SP would be ranked 32. In other words the average guy now wouldnt have even been a starter in 1960.

You're still not making a lot of sense to me - at least not enough for a lightbulb moment.... but I will admit that this is a subject where I don't know much and a subject i have no feel for.

Still, the two most dominant stallions of the last 20 years are unquestionably Mr. Prospector and Storm Cat. It's getting to the point where you see their name somewhere in the pedigree of almost every promising horse.

Mr. Prospector was a speed-sprinter who would need to hail a cab to get 9 furlongs - let alone 1 1/4 miles.



He couldn't even get 8.5 furlongs in the Lexington on a loose and uncontested lead at Keeneland as a 2/5 favorite. His Derby Trial defeat at 3/5 going a mile - was a race where he pretty much stopped to a jog in the stretch.

Storm Cat was a very brilliant 2-year-old for one of the last trainers you'd ever expect to have a quick and early 2yo. He was a fragile horse and also one lacking in stamina.

I think the breed might be going where the market is taking it.