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Originally Posted by Sightseek
If you took out the stats for the upper level Stakes horses would you find that average starts are declining as quickly?
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Unfortunately, the lack of readily available data in electronic form prevents an easy answer to that. I'm working on a project which will eventually have race records for stakes winners across a lengthy span of time (which could then be compared to contemporary breed norms), but for practical reasons, I had to rearrange the order in which I am doing certain tasks so I won't be working on that aspect for a long time, probably years.
Sticking to relatively current data, I can run average start-per-season figures for crops back to the early 1990s. During this recent span, it appears that the horses who earned significantly more than average for a year (generally indicative of better stakes-caliber form) show a faster decline in average starts per season, but started at a much higher average compared to lesser-earning runners. I would be curious to see what would happen if I ran comparable numbers for more distant times, as the current trend toward fewer starts per season was well-established by the early 1990s.