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Originally Posted by Cannon Shell
The use of stats are often deceptive, especially so in horseracing. The number of starts per year has been decreasing since 1950, with horses going from 11 starts to 6 per year. Of course they forget to mention that field size has decreased from 9.06 horses per race to 8.17 last year. So the average race in 1950 had 9 horses and the average race in 2007 had 8. Seems to me that is a signifigant stat that never seems to be brought up. They way it is portrayed, in the 50's every field was 12 horses and they ran every week. The reality is that they raced less than once a month and the fields were roughly the same size as now. This of course is the reality of facts which are not to be confused with hysterical opinions that are being presented. But that would take a basic understanding of the sport and its evolution, which seems to be in short supply.
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Wasn't winter racing in the '50s somewhat sparse? If most horses back then got the winter off, the racing season was really around 9 months, so an 11 start average meant horses were running more frequently than once a month.
Also, wasn't the foal crop size dramatically different back then, with less horses being foaled? There were less available horses to fill races, yet there were still more horses per race on average than now. I don't have the figures, but I suppose this comparison would be offset quite a bit if there are more races being run nowadays then there were back then.