[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by miraja2

The only reason I could think of would be if the people that made these decisions actually liked the sport of horse racing.
I guess in some ways you might be right. These days it is probably crazy to think that owners should actually like participating in the sport. I think this whole sport got started with two guys saying to each other, "my horse is faster than your horse." Somehow, that has a better ring to it than the current, "I can find a soft G1 race for my horse, win it, and retire the thing while your stupid animal will still have to race!"
There was "no reason" to run Personal Ensign as a 4yo after she won G1s at ages 2 and 3, but her connections decided to do it anyway. I guess some people actually did like the sport of horse racing once upon a time. The folks at Darley clearly do not.

I wish they cared more about the racing side of things. I wish all owners were in it more for racing than anything else. As I said, I'm disappointed that things are the way they are and long for the days when it was nearly automatic that a top 3yo would be brought back to race as a 4yo and even beyond. I think that the sport was so much better then, even 10 years ago. But at the same time, I understand (and I know you do as well so I'm not implying that you don't get it) that there is another side to the sport than just the racing and I understand that for some operations, Darley and Coolmore probably being the most prominent, the breeding side of the game is more important. I guess I just don't get as outraged when these things happen because I've come to expect it and I know that if the breeding side weren't a part of the game, they might not be involved. I hear a lot of people say that they think Coolmore and especially Darley aren't good for the game. I think they are very good and that the overall game would be very different if they weren't involved.