Quote:
Originally Posted by Danzig
it's not the issue of two year old form, it's the issue of encouraging more starts at three, and having good three year olds in the derby-as opposed to a good two year old who may have been surpassed by his peers a few months later-but he earned enough last season to play this season.
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This might make sense theoretically, but where is the evidence that the Derby is regularly inundated with over-the-hill 2yos?
I can think of two offhand that perhaps should not have been in the Derby, those being Capote and Action This Day (who actually didn't run that bad).
Meanwhile horses that were successful in the Triple Crown like Mine That Bird, Giacomo, Funny Cide, Real Quiet, Timber Country, Go For Gin, Sea Hero, Best Pal, Alysheba, Ferdinand, Tejano Run, Lemon Drop Kid, Birdstone, Proud Citizen, A.P. Valentine, Louis Quatorze, and Gate Dancer all possibly could have been held out of the Kentucky Derby because they didn't happen to win a significant prep race.
While I, too, would like to see these horses race a couple of more times before the TC, "encouraging" them to
win prep races is not the answer. In fact, the competition to win these lesser races (with overstuffed purse money) is probably one of the reasons why trainers nowadays only bring them out a couple of times before Churchill. How many winning efforts can a typical 3yo horse uncork in a 5-month span?