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Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS
Exactly.
Here's an interesting stat. "In 1960, before permissive medications became legal, the average american racehorse ran 11.3 times in a year. By 2005, that number had plummeted to just 6.4 starts per year."
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This often stated fact actually is misused in the whole context of horses and their soundness as it relates to medication. The fact that the pool of horses almost doubled between 1960 and 1980 is the real reason that the starts per horse per year dropped so dramatically. If you take into consideration that since the mid eighties 2 year olds have been campaigned much lighter, you can understand how this could pull down the avg starts further. One stat that is almost never quoted is the fact that field size has remained pretty constant during the entire era from 1960 despite a stretch during the 80's where there were a signifigant rise in the number of races run. The truth is that field size has dropped from an average of 9 horses per race in 1960 to a little over 8 per race now. I personally believe that if you eliminated 2 year olds entirely from the mix and only compared the avg starts for 3 year olds and up the difference would be much less.
Of course you can just continue to use one flawed stat that props up a weak argument that most of the industry believes. Of course this is the same industry that thought that OTB's and exotic wagers would not work.