Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

You are right. I agree with your quote, "The fact that so many horses are too unsound to train or run indicates a problem." I agree with you 100%. I don't know what the problem is either. I don't know if it's the breed or the track surfaces or what. But I do know that there aren't very many sound horses out there. Many of these horses were horses who were trained really hard early in their two year old year at the two year old sales. So you can't say that they are unsound because of a lack of activity as a 2 year old.

All of my experience as both a handicapper and as an owner/racing manager over the past 25 years is that the harder they are on 2 year olds, the less chance there is that they will be winning big races as an older horse. I am sure that trend will continue. You won't see many horses winning the BC Classic that ran 20 times between their 2 and 3 year old years.

By the way, I think a relatively sound 3 year old or a 4 year old can run more than 6 times a year. I don't see any reason why you can't run them 7-8 times a year. I would always give them at least 4 weeks between races.