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Originally Posted by Bold Brooklynite
The shorter careers may be due to factors other than physical fragility. I'm mainly referring to racing at the G1 level.
It's clear that G1-level horses are raced far less than in the past ... but I don't think it's because they're any more fragile. In the past ... horses who began their racing careers early on ... and who raced frequently ... tended to stay sounder longer.
Maybe it was Darwinian in that they were the sounder specimens to begin with ... but I believe that being a G1 professional athlete requires extraordinary physical and mental training ... which today's horses simply aren't getting.
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Don't see how you can do a study on just G1 horses. Pletcher did just have to euthanize Venetian Sunset, one of his top 4yr olds, so there is another quality horse that went down, but I don't know if it was a bad step or just a fragile horse. I believe VS was plagued by injuries his entire career, but not positive on that one.