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Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin
All kidding aside, I don't know anything about what they do in Austarlia. I don't know why horses seemed to be able to run more often in this country 30 years ago.
I do know that right now in this country, horses don't last or stay in form if you run them every 2-3 weeks. I wouldn't run a claiming horse every 2-3 weeks, let alone a stakes horse. Why do you think that the good horses only run about 6 times a year or so? If they could run these horses every 2-3 weeks and get 15 races a year out of them, they would do it. It's not like trainers are the most altruistic guys in the world. It's actually the opposite. Most trainers are pretty greedy.
Some horses are obviously more fragile than others. You don't treat every horse the same way, but there is no horse that I would run every 2-3 weeks. I think all the top trainers would agree with me. You don't see Pletcher or Frankel running their horses every 2-3 weeks.
I think running Angara every 2-3 weeks definitely took its toll on her. Her last few races of the year were not good.
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I'm not sure why they don't run more. But I don't think it is because they couldn't.
I respect your opinion that Angara's campaign might have taken its toll on her.
But I felt that some races just didn't "set up" for her and/or she cycled out of form last year. The thought of Biancone "running her into the ground" never entered my mind and I wondered why you stated that unless you knew she was broken down after last year or something.
I would prefer that horses run every 14-21 days in a campaign and then get a lay up. It seems to me that this is impossible due to our year long racing season in America, and maybe that is why trainers space the races out so much.
Another opinion I have on the long layoffs between races with "good horses" is the fear of losing due to an impact later in a career at stud.
Maybe the owners of really nice horses don't want them having blips on their record if they can help it now due to the current breeding market.
I could be way off on that though, let me know your opinion of this one Richi..
If you had a really nice colt who had won 3 out of 3 and looked to be pretty tough, would you fret about him losing a race/races due to the impact on his stud fee at a later date.
Let me clarify that I wasn't trying to offend you with my Angara statements, it just never entered my mind that Biancone was abusing her last year and I didn't understand why you thought that. I think he was just maximizing her profit margin with all of the checks she picked up, and I don't think she will earn as much this year..even with the G1 yesterday.