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Originally Posted by Linny
The definition of successful has changed. When a top handicap horse (when there were real handicaps) ran 12-15 times a season and lost 5 or 6 times, he still had a decent shot at a title. Now you can win all year, lose the Breeders' Cup by a neck and your a "phony."
In 1942 Whirlaway ran 22 times between April 9th and Dec 12. He won 11 (one was a walkover) and never finished off the board. He won races like the Clark H, the Brooklyn, and the JCGC and the Dixie H. He placed in the Suburban and the Arlington H among others. He raced from 6f to 2 miles. A season like that today would never happen because top horses are held out for all but 4 or 5 top engagements, all geared to having his A game for the Breeders' Cup.
Trainers can and will do what they want with their stock but my disgreement is with not running a fit healthy horse. They skip races with a fit horse then cry and moan when horsey gets hurt in training and has to miss the big dance.
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As I've said before, I don't know anything about what happened in 1942. I know a lot about racing from about 1982 to the present. I can tell you that one of the first things I noticed as a handicapper was that horses that ran every 2-3 weeks usually did not stay in form for very long. These horses would usually run a few good races and that would be the end of them. The good trainers know this and that is why they don't run their hores every 2-3 weeks. I'm not saying that horses can't run every 4 weeks. I think every 4 weeks is fine. If you have a relatively sound horse and run him all year every 4 weeks or so, you could probably get 10-11 races out of him. Races are not going to always come up when you want them to, so you probably couldn't run the horse 12 times. Not only that, if you're going to run the horse for a year straight, it's probably a good idea to send him out to the farm for a month at the end of the year. Then would end up costing you a few months because a horse loses his conditioning when he's out orf training for a month.
If I had a horse that I thought could win the Breeder's Cup, I wouldn't try to run him too many times that year. I'd probably give him a break and start up with him in March. I think it is a little too conservative to only run him 3 times before the Breeder's Cup. There's a lot of money out there and I'd feel pretty stupid if we skipped a ton of god races that we could have won and then ended up losing in the BC. So I would probably plan a campaign where the BC ends up being the horse's 6th race of the year or something like that. Competing at the highest level like that, I would probabl give the horse a little more time between racs than an average horse. I'd tried to run him every 4-6 weeks.