I would say all of the above except over racing 2 yo's if anything they are under raced and the breed is weakening from all factors. two year olds run like 3 to 4 times and thats it, many don't race at all or once. everyone talks about the 2 yo crop but it does not matter anymore because there will be at least half a dozen horses going for the derby next year that we have not even heard of yet. and the handful thats on everyones radar that won't even make it until spring.(its like a yearly tradition now). the breed is definetly weaker. the training methods are out of necessity because many horses can't make a hard campaign. i don't know, maybe a race every two or 3 months or more is what they consider a "hard" campaign now!!! but it is killing the following of average folks and media coverage. "average joe" in his arm chair is not going to be captured by some horse that wins 4 times a year and retires.............name recognition is the name of any game......stars sell.......flashes in the pan are not remembered by people that are not avid fans! thats what we get now and it does not sell this game AT ALL! as someone else stated , once farms went from an outfit of "winning" to the greed of "breeding" the game has gone down hill and hard! now, you've got "investment" groups coming into horse racing. It used be a sport where the owners of the best horses wanted to win and brag......the money was an after thought. Most of them had money(from other sources) and didn't care if they made a dime........they wanted to say they had the fastest horse. theres a reason it was called the sport of kings.
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