Street Sense to skip Belmont

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by Cardus

Since the Belmont Stakes is not as important as the Travers Stakes -- except when there is an attempt to win the Triple Crown -- then why are Curlin's owners and trainer running him? In light of what you posted earlier, aren't they being foolish to run in the Belmont Stakes and risk the second half of the year?

With less foundation than Street Sense, it would seem that a greater risk is to run Curlin than it is to run Street Sense.

I wonder this myself. I think it's even more of a risk running Curlin than SS.

The thing I want to be clear about is this. I don't think that running in the Belmont means that it necessarily increases a horse's chances of getting hurt afterwards. That's why I've said that I know it's not always for physical reasons why so many horses get knocked out later. I understand that horses like Point Given and Empire Maker were retired as much for economical reasons as physical, if not more. But what happens is that once a horse wins one of these TC races, and especially if they win two, they become so much more valuable that more precaution is taken with things that otherwise would have been seen as minor (thanks Sniper for helping me articulate this better). It's sort of like in other sports. A guy that u are paying $200k to, u might treat him and send him right back out. But if u are looking at someone u've invested $20 million into, u treat him different.