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Originally Posted by pgardn
Yes. Because other horses will improve. And thats because you are not a fan. Too much of a middle man. This very revealing. I think this particular thread illustrates the difference between the incredibly educated, in the know, ultrapragmatic horse people, and the ignorant masses (me). And the game as a whole takes a big fat back seat.
Dont be offended by my brashness/picking a fight. This is part of the fun of the board. I actually very much respect your opinions.
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I've been in the sport on all levels. I've been in it as a bettor, a fan, an owner, and a racing manager. So it's not like I see things from any one angle. I see things from each of those points of view.
With regard to Bernardini, I actually have the same opinion no matter which hat I'm wearing. If I owned the horse, I would definitely retire him for a number of reasons. He will be worth so much money if he wins the BC Classic that there would be no real upside to run him next year. As I said, he would probably be worth at least $100 million. It would cost $5 million just to insure him next year. Even if he won a bunch oif races next year, I don't think his value would go up much more. But if he started losing next year, his value could come down quite a bit. So there simply would be practically no upside to running him next year, but quite a bit of downside.
As a fan and bettor, I would want them to retire Bernardini next year assuming that he wins the BC Classic relatively easily. The reason being that I do enjoy betting big races and when a horse like Bernardini is running, the race usually becomes unbettable for me. I couldn't see anyone challenging Bernardini for at least the first half of next year. Even if there is some freakish 3 year old next year, that horse would probably not run against older horses until September or October. So we would probably have nothing but four and five horse fields every time that Bernardini runs and he would go off at 1-5 every time. That would pretty much ruin those races for me from a bettor's point of view.