I hear ya.

However, your new rule was awful.

If the BC Classic was restricted to multiple Grade 1 winners on dirt - in many years you'd have a four or five horse field running for a $5 million purse.

You'll actually run the risk of having more horses breakdown that way. Because the connections of a long in the tooth or sore horse who won a pair of Grade 1's in the past....they will do everything possible to make a race against three or four opponets that carries a $5,000,000 purse.

We do have left-handed tracks as well, you know?

However, we only have once track in England that is as tight (possibly tighter) than the tracks you have in the US.

Four of the five synthetic tracks in Britain and Ireland are left-handed.

You cant legislate out breakdowns with rules...

Though I feel remorse for the groom and lads connected to the horse I think it is especially tragic when a top horse breaks down in a race where they had no chance.

Plus you'd have some completely off form older geldings entering the race to try and get fifth cause they had 2 G1 wins earlier in their career. Or horses like Silver Wagon who have no business going 10 furlongs.

Well, let's take a look if this highly amusing rule would have been in place for Saturday's BC Classic.

Of the field of nine - Any Given Saturday (one Grade 1 dirt wins) Hard Spun (one Grade 1 dirt win) Awesome Gem (0 Grade 1 dirt wins) Diamond Stripes (0 Grade 1 dirt wins) George Washington (0 Grade 1 dirt wins) - would all be excluding from running.

That leaves us with a four horse field for the Breeders Cup Classic consisting of.....Tiago (2 Grade 1 wins) Curlin (2 Grade 1 wins) Lawyer Ron (2 Grade 1 wins) and Street Sense (3 Grade 1 wins)

How would trainers have planned for it?

You mean they would have actually tried winning Grade 1 races?

This might be your best post yet!

Even last year I thought it was a wrong move from his connections to enter GW in the classic. This year the decision to bring him back to compete with this strong field was even worst because in addition to all this, the horse never ran in the slop in the pass, so I couldn't understand what the connections were thinking. To me clearly they never considered what was the best for the horse, they just used him as a betting tool.
Note: Bobby Frankel was not present yesterday at MTH, because he didn't feel in good spirit because his dog is very sick with cancer. He prefered stay in So. California with his dog in the hospital. That's love to an animal.

Or a good excuse not to go...

He still gets paid.

They didn't use this horse as a "betting tool" in any sense of the word. I reckon the folks around Ballydoyle along with many in England and Ireland thought about as much of George Washington as all of the sap-heads over here thought of Barbaro.

They loved this horse dearly, and your analysis is way off. Without a doubt they thought he could win this race and be declared a champion. Aidan O'Brien isn't an idiot.

Maybe Barbaro broke down as well because he was a "true turf horse..."

Pure rubbish, all of this ****.

Racehorses break down, and the Ballydoyle team loved him just as much as anyone else loves any horse.

I see Super Boardman swooped down and scolded you. Too funny.

I agree...the surface had nothing to do with his demise....the connections gave up on him and kept throwing him to the wolves...very often....that was the problem.

These whiney "oh the poor horsie" threads are a bit much....they should keep them all in one area so we dont have to read em.

Champion of what?

I'd guess that it wasn't Aidans choice to run

Ya know, it's not like George Washington was beaten 50 lengths or eased when he ran in the Classic last year. As a 3yo trying dirt for the first time and having never run more than a mile before, he made a nice middle move before flattening out and finished 6th beaten 7 lenghts - running a 106 Beyer. He beat more than half the field and finished 3 1/2 lengths behind Premium Tap who would have been an elite handicap horse this year if he remained in the US. That 106 Beyer he ran last year was right in the same ballpark as what Street Sense and Tiago had run this summer/fall - and he easily could have improved on that with the experience and maturity.

I'm not saying I liked him to win, but running him back as a 4 year old with some maturity, dirt experience, and a couple of 10 furlong races under his belt certainly wasn't the most outlandish entry you'll ever see.

What happened was horrible but it's not like the owners were running Rick's Natural Star or some 10 claimer who didn't belong in the race to begin with.

He was getting worse on turf. . .

A two time European champion turf miler who wins the Breeders Cup Classic on dirt would be considered a bit of a champion in my book.

And I'd guess you were wrong, I think he wanted to run the horse.

I'm not convinced that Aidan wanted to run him here, either. He was quoted a few weeks before saying that George would go for the Champion Stakes (at Newmarket the weekend before), which looked like a Gr1 he could win, and judging by the result, a Gr1 he would have won.

It was only at the last moment that he was not declared in that race and then a press release said that GW was going for the Classic.

Aidan isn't the sort of person to change his mind. He has a plan for all of his horses and tries to work to that plan as close as possible. I would be very surprised if it was his decision to run him at Monmouth, especially in the Classic. He is employed by the Coolmore bosses, i quite think they made the decision, not Aidan..... and there is a chance that it was against Aidan's choice.

I quite think that was the same with Dylan Thomas. There was never ANY talk of running in the BC Turf after they said he's run in the Arc. I remember having this conversation with someone a month or two ago. I said if they ran in the Arc, they wouldn't go to the BC, not when there is only 20 days inbetween. Even right before the Arc they said America wasn't really on the agenda. They said if he won the Arc (we all know he did) that would be the end for him. If he didn't win, they would "consider" the BC for him. So, naturally, after he won i just thought he had been retired. Yet about three days later they had confirmed him for the BC Turf. The decision seemed to come right out of the blue.

My guess would be that John Magnier wanted as many runners as possible for the BC this year.

Judging from news reports after George's tragic injury, there were no words between O'Brien and Magnier. Aidan (along with family) left Monmouth very quickly after the incident.