Another word on 'freshness'?

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Dunbar

Rupert, I was thinking of horses like Alysheba, who ran 7 times as a 2-yr-old, 10 times as a 3-year-old, and 9 times at 4. Sunday Silence ran 9 times as a 3-yr-old. Ferdinand ran 29 times in his career. Holy Bull ran 10 times as a 3-yr-old.

And if we go back just 26-28 years, we have Spectacular Bid racing 9 times as a 2-yr-old, an astounding 12 times as a 3-yr-old, and 9 times as a 4-yr-old. And he didn't lose any of those last 9 races.

What makes the 12 times as a 3-yr-old even more astounding was that he WAS given time off after the Belmont, at least in part because of the hoof injury. So a lot of those 12 races had to be coming on very short rest.

--Dunbar

I think that horses today can run 10 times a year. I don't see a problem with that. I think horses can run every 4-5 weeks. But if I had a horse who I really thought could win the Breeder's Cup, I probably wouldn't run him that many times because I would want him to be realtively fresh for the race. I'd probably time it so that the BC would be his 6th race of the year. If the horse was a Grade III type of horse and not a BC type of horse then I would try to run the horse 9-10 times a year.