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Originally Posted by GenuineRisk
I really think the only way to see horses racing at 4 is for the Jockey Club to pass rules that racing thoroughbreds must be sired by horses who are at least 5 years old. That, or limit stallion books. And the breeding market has such control I don't think it'll ever happen.
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Never going to happen. It's easy for folks to make rules about other people's horses but the cost of upkeep is too high to force benching and what if the horse gets hurt at age 2? It could be argued it's good to keep them out of the gene pool but it's not always soundness, sometimes it's a freak accident. Big Brown's insurance premium, as I understood it, was $3 million. Say they could get no more races out of him so he didn't run at age 4 but they had to continue to pay insurance, bills, etc. All you end up doing is pushing people out of the business. It means only the wealthier folks can afford to keep up in the sport. Between people wanting to keep them off the track at age 2 and others wanting them to have to wait longer to breed, well it's too financially difficult and instead of improving fan excitement, the industry falls apart from within. Lets also not forget the idea that you can't force someone to keep their horse on the track. They might decide the only way to make money is to keep pushing them so they can get purses, rather than let them lay up to get over battle scars and not make any money. I mean if they can't sell to breed in the US, they're gonna find a way to do it somehow. Might sell overseas where they don't have those rules and voila, our best are sent out of the country without a moment's notice. They might just start leasing to Japan, Australia or South America until they're 5 but that's best case scenario. I don't think it's wrong to take breeders into account here. No breeders, no horse.