People need to understand that u can't bring up what horses used to do in the past and say that today's horses should be able to do the same. This is a different game and the horses are different.
I wouldn't run Curlin back in the race either. I'd much rather back off of him and regroup for the summer in races like the Haskell and Travers and Super Derby. Personally, I feel that the Travers is a more prestigious race to win than the Preakness or Belmont. And the purse and grade are the same. By that time of year, the ranks of the 3yo's have been severely depleted by needless runs in the Preakness and Belmont. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here but I think u have to go back to Thunder Gulch in 1995 to find the last Derby winner that ran in the Travers.
For all that are saying that if he came out of the Derby fine, two weeks is not too soon so why not, how often would u do that? Would u run him every two weeks for a year? Or at some point, would u take a break with him? The horse had a very condensed schedule to get him to the point that they got him so fast. Squeezing the lemon dry at this point would not be the right thing, IMO. If there was some kind of incentive, maybe the point bonus or if the purse of the Preakness was significantly higher than the late summer races, then maybe I could endorse it more. This is not 1948.
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The real horses of the year (1986-2020)
Manila, Java Gold, Alysheba, Sunday Silence, Go for Wand, In Excess, Paseana, Kotashaan, Holy Bull, Cigar, Alphabet Soup, Formal Gold, Skip Away, Artax, Tiznow, Point Given, Azeri, Candy Ride, Smarty Jones, Ghostzapper, Invasor, Curlin, Zenyatta, Zenyatta, Goldikova, Havre de Grace, Wise Dan, Wise Dan, California Chrome, American Pharoah, Arrogate, Gun Runner, Accelerate, Maximum Security, Gamine
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