I'm pretty sure the purse money for the Queen's Club is nowhere close to comparable to Wimbledon.
I understand your point and don't totally disagree with it. I think that the sport would be much better off with a coordinated stakes schedule among the tracks and maybe even with defined rules on who can and can't enter certain races. There is no doubt that the Travers is a much more prestigious race to be in but with the way things are now, there is also no doubt that it's not as important as it used to be. With the addition of races like the West Virginia Derby, the Penn Derby, the Indiana Derby, and even the Pacific Classic, the options are more plentiful than they used to be. So if I want to blame anyone, I blame the sport. I don't blame the owners for taking an easier path to the money and the championship. We've seen Lookin at Lucky, Curlin, and Big Brown recently win the Eclipse after not running in the Travers.
The fact is, after yesterday's race, even though you may call them cowards, they are looking even better. They didn't lose any ground in the championship race. They probably increased their lead. They will still be running for $1 million and they are going to be odds-on to win it and strengthen their position even more.
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The real horses of the year (1986-2020)
Manila, Java Gold, Alysheba, Sunday Silence, Go for Wand, In Excess, Paseana, Kotashaan, Holy Bull, Cigar, Alphabet Soup, Formal Gold, Skip Away, Artax, Tiznow, Point Given, Azeri, Candy Ride, Smarty Jones, Ghostzapper, Invasor, Curlin, Zenyatta, Zenyatta, Goldikova, Havre de Grace, Wise Dan, Wise Dan, California Chrome, American Pharoah, Arrogate, Gun Runner, Accelerate, Maximum Security, Gamine
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