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Originally Posted by Bold Brooklynite
Here we all are ... doing what we have become accustomed to doing ... waiting ... and waiting ... and waiting ... for something interesting to happen at the top tier of the sport we all love.
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There has been an evolution in the wrong direction. We once demanded a body of accomplishment. As near as I can tell, we are now we are stuck in a rut where all we want are perfect superhorses. Any horse with sufficient starts (say, more than four or five) to appear that he or she is not the best horse ever to step onto a track is discarded in favor of a maiden winner "who might be anything." We never want to see a horse lose a race, so if that means giving crowning adulation for winning parades against hapless third-raters or simply assuming a horse is so superior that he needn't even actually run in races to prove it, so be it. So that's what we get: carefully choreographed, brief campaigns which are focused upon winning races, never mind the competition, culminating with the hope that these half-tested, underprepared animals can manage to stay sound and in form long enough to win on Breeders' Cup day.
We are, truly, moving toward a point when horses - aside from classic-bound 3YOs - with championship aspirations will rarely be spotted on the track before the late summer, and will have two- or three-race seasons (a prep and the Breeders' Cup). What else would they need to do? Why would anyone bother risking their horse's reputation and limbs running in races that don't matter? Reputations are built in a day and come undone just as quickly. Welcome to the 21st century.