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Originally Posted by King Glorious
But even if the horse is doing just fine, I think that Nafzger has earned the right to know better for the horse than any of us. A lot of people criticized his plan to use only two preps. But he knew his horse. If he thinks the horse would be better served with a break now to point for the fall races, again, I think Nafzger has earned that right. There are plenty of other guys that have come along recently and been flashes in the pan and haven't earned that right to be unquestioned. I believe Nafzger has though.
The thing is that the Belmont is a mighty demanding race. In addition to the recent winners that Cannon listed, we could go even deeper. Look at horses that have run in all three TC races over the past 10 years. The list of horses that have won at least one TC race while running in all three over the past 10 years is:
Silver Charm
Real Quiet
Victory Gallop
Charismatic
Monarchos
Point Given
War Emblem
Funny Cide
Smarty Jones
Giacomo
Afleet Alex
That's 11 horses. Eight of the 11 didn't finish the year. This is a fact. Seven of those eight didn't run past the Belmont. This is a fact. As a group, the 11 horses went on to win a total of three races as 3yo's post TC. I've acknowledged in past posts that I understand that some of it was due to factors besides injury. And I do recognize that five of those horses did come back in later years and win some really good races. But recent history is not on the side of seeing either Curlin or Street Sense or Hard Spun do anything more this year should they run back in the Belmont. Only three of those on the list made it to the BC (Victory Gallop, War Emblem and Funny Cide).
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This is the same argument that you made when you were arguing that Curlin should skip the Preakness. How did that one turn out?
Let's say Street Sense skipped the Belmont....took another week off....and ran in the Stephen Foster. Would that magically help his chances of winning the Jim Dandy months from now?
Look at the horses that HAVE skipped one of the TC races (Empire Maker, Jazil etc.). Have they done a lot better?