Good Lord another pletcher freak

Originally Posted by boldruler

I will take the word of the guys at Three Chimneys. Any study would be unreliable because they just don't run as often in their careers. The data suggests that horses careers are now shorter than they were, across all levels.

The shorter careers may be due to factors other than physical fragility. I'm mainly referring to racing at the G1 level.

It's clear that G1-level horses are raced far less than in the past ... but I don't think it's because they're any more fragile. In the past ... horses who began their racing careers early on ... and who raced frequently ... tended to stay sounder longer.

Maybe it was Darwinian in that they were the sounder specimens to begin with ... but I believe that being a G1 professional athlete requires extraordinary physical and mental training ... which today's horses simply aren't getting.