Current TC Spacing Dates Back to 1969

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

If you ask any trainer that has TC experience, they will all tell you that the schedule is a huge issue. If you ask a trainer that doesn't have TC experience, 90% of them will tell you it's a huge issue. I think that guys who are with horses every day and do it for a living may have some idea as to how long it takes horses to recover from races.

As you may have noticed in the article, Asmussen said that if there was more space between races that it would make it easier. That is obvious.

I've stated this before but I really disagree that spacing the races would make it easier. There are several reasons I feel this way.

First, there is almost universal acceptance that the way they breed these horses has changed dramatically. They no longer are the sturdy horses we grew up with but have become a soft, fragile animal. The current training methods only make them softer. As much as I hate to admit it, it's becoming increasingly clear that they need more time between races than horses of the past. I may not necessarily believe this but obviously, many top trainers do. With that in mind, more spaces between the races would probably lead to more of the horses that are considered top horses running back in the Preakness. Each year, you usually have a couple of contenders that can have their Derby efforts tossed because of legitimate excuses that then skip the Preakness and run in the Belmont. You also get several that skip the Preakness just because it comes back so close and there is no reason to run back. Palace Malice, Union Rags, Summer Bird, Jazil, Birdstone, and Empire Maker are six that have run in Kentucky, skipped the Preakness, and won the Belmont in the last 11 seasons with Birdstone and Empire Maker both ending TC bids. So my belief is that with more top horses coming back in the Preakness, it makes that a tougher race to win. The same feeling holds true for the Belmont.

The next reason I feel it would be tougher is because it would require the horses to hold their form for a longer period of time. The more time between the races, the more that can go wrong in training and the easier it is to lose their sharpness.

A third reason is one that would be in conjunction with shortening the races. Listen, whether we like it or not, people aren't breeding horses to run 10f+ anymore. I remember once reading that 70% of the races in this country are run at 8f and under and that's what it seems breeders are aiming at. Nobody is trying to breed a Derby winner anymore. They are breeding 8-9f runners and hoping they can just be the best of the bunch and outlast the others to 10f. Look at a horse like California Chrome. The vast majority of the so-called "experts" will tell you that they believe his best distance is probably 9f. The 2yo champ from last year, Shared Belief, just made his return and I bet if you were to ask people what distance they'd prefer to see them match up at, it would be 8.5-9f. You could line up Groovy, Gulch, Very Subtle, Safely Kept, Xtra Heat, Meafara, On the Line, Kona Gold, and Artax and make it a 10f race and three of them will hit the board and one will win. But that is not the best distance for any of them and the best race for that group would be a 6f sprint where all of them can give their best. What I'm getting at is a 9f Derby would be a tougher race to win than a 10f one and a 10f Belmont would be tougher to win than a 12f one. Why? Because the conditions would suit more of the horses and make them legit contenders. It's only logical that the more contenders that fit the conditions, the tougher it is to win.

Some people are set in their ways and will scream tradition and I respect that. But while changing it up will make it different, it won't necessarily make it easier.