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Originally Posted by Cannon Shell
You are buying into a argument that makes no sense. First of all of course mares individually dont make as much difference as stallions do individually but lets face it, if there are 35000 foals there are at least 35000 mares needed to produce them. The fact that stallions covered 40 to 50 mares per year in the 60's seems to have escaped everyones attention. A stallion now covers three times that amount meaning a bad stallion is having three times the effect of a good stallion. But a stallion that has weaknesses is still going to have weaknesses regardless of medication. You want to say they wouldn't be breeding? Fine but most of the well bred horses are going to get a chance somewhere. I find it amazing that everyone simply talks about the stallions.
This argument of allowing weaker horses to pass off genetic weakness is bunk. You say he was talking about steroids but I want to know where to draw the line. Like I said about PE, if she never ran after she broke down originally would she have been the same success as a broodmare? Of course she would have. Her return to the races was due to modern technology and medicine, in the 50's she would never have raced again. So why is that technology that allowed an obviously "weaker" horse to return to the races and succeed not be the same as Lasix allowing a horse who bleeds to do the same? Is bleeding an inheirent trait? Is "brittleness" a real trait? Or rather the real cause of most soundness issues, confirmation issues to blame? The whole medication is weakening the breed crowd never brings in anyone from outside of racing to verify what they are saying. Why is that? Because they would rather spew opinion rather than truth. The trend of lesser starts began long before the medication door was opened. A fact that is ignored rather routinely. Everybody says that the tracks are getting harder but Jerry Brown has shown at least some documentation that that is not the case. But it fits the argument better if it the tracks are getting harder, something else to blame. People want to say that more horses are breaking down than ever yet there is no proof that is the case.
So if i treat my horse with hyperbaric oxygen to keep it from bleeding, shockwave and adequan to keep its joints sounder, gastrogard to keep its ulcers from cropping up, RVI and Bodybuilder for its muscles and the horse goes out and wins a bunch of races and becomes a stallion it is bad for the breed? Because in 1950 none of these things were available and the subtraction of one may have caused my horse not to perform and hence not been a stallion prospect. Or I could say that my horse needs Lasix or steroids to do the same and then we are howling because those help "enhance" his performance and will in turn "weaken" the breed. So are we saying that all modern techniques that help a "weaker" horse succeed should be eliminated? We should simply let the bleeders bleed? Or whenever a horse has any infirmity just turn them out? Because if "weaker" horses are being bred and creating "weaker" horses, where exactly do we draw the line? Who determines what constitutes weakness? The generalizations used by Beyer and others are simply an agenda that has been pushed strongly recently without much rational except that it sounds right. That and the other countries are doing it. And yet virtually all of Coolmores Irish stallion roster is made up of American Bred decendants of Northern Dancer. And the euros are putting in more american style tracks and buying up our bloodstock at record levels. All products of "medication weakened" breeding.
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I think you are over thinking this.. Medical advances aren't bad nor should they be precluded from race horses.. If you have a horse that can only be outstanding because of medication and would otherwise be ordinary or not even a runner then breeding to him or her becomes a bit more dodgey. Breeding sound to sound has to be more beneficial long term then breeding unsound and fast to unsound and fast.
it's all BS anyway nobody is going to buy slow sound horses because they are sound and hence the likelyhood of the breed being rebuilt on this premise is retarded.
BTW nobody breeds 150 mares to a crappy stallion for to long..The only way they get 150 to 250 mares long term is by producing.. You think Fu Peg is going to keep getting 200 mares if he doesn't start to have results on the track that warrant such demand?