Pletcher to have no horses in the Travers

[Sightseek]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

Individual horses and their problems are not the real problem. It is the attitude that horses, 3 year olds especially, need to be handled with kid gloves especially when they are a race or 2 away from retiring. Assmussen's quote is crazy. You cant keep a horse at the top of his game for 60 days if you race them? The irony is that the end of the year awards are fairly meaningless in the breeding business. Invasor was won the horse of the year last year but wanna bet Bernardini stands for a heck of a lot more money? (Not that either owner needs the bucks) Sure maybe Brndni stands for a lot more if he wins but only one horse wins the damn race. The rest of them lose anyway. The problem with these carefully managed "campaigns" is that we never really find out how good any of these horses are. There are no more great horses because greatness requires passing tests. Sure it is not our business what a man does with his horse. But it makes me sick when billionaires protect their horses reputations with brief campaigns and early retirements. For what? So they can make a couple of million more? Whatever happened to the pride of having the fastest horse?

One thing that Assmussen was correct about in the Daily News article is that guys are getting rewarded for not running. There really needs to be a closer look taken at the credentials of those who are doing the voting for these awards. Just being a card carrying member of the turf writers association shoul not cut it. A lot of the guys who vote dont pay much attention to the sport outside of the Triple Crown and Breeders Cup anyway.

Racing always screws up when we try to be more like other sports. The "win and your in" concept is so flawed I wont even say anymore about it. The making of the Breeders Cup into a "championship" day demeans the entire racing schedule. We aren't Nascar or Ncaa Basketball and letting outside interests try to make us into that hurts the sport's creditability.

Amen!