The consistent lack of racing by good race horses is obviously the main problem they have in terms of promoting the sport in the way they want to promote it.
It's hard to imagine another horse ever coming along even like Skip Away in terms of combining elite quality performances, consistency, durability, travel, and constant campaign from the latter part of a 2yo season all the way to the end of a 5-year-old season.
Awesome Again's undefeated but champion-free campaign of '98 was basically where the trendiness of these type of campaigns all started. Frankel helped a great deal soon after and when Pletcher noticed his stats were great with layoff and freshened horses and mediocre with horses who race on less than 4 weeks rest -- he adjusted his placement to his stats.
I don't see how another Skip Away is even possible in this climate.
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08-21-2012, 02:51 PM
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