"Spaced" Races And "Fresh" Horses Are Killing The Sport

[Phalaris1913]

I certainly can't, perhaps others have access to such data. There were studies done in Europe that appeared to demonstrate increased bone mass and tendon strength in horses racing early and often at two, but I understand there has been a problem with replication of results and one would think that shouldn't be the case with a "Historical" type study so...
It's just my personal feeling that pushing everything back a year would be beneficial...a moot point as long as money dictates such things (that reads as NEVER). My point remains that the problem is in the breeding...breed the best to the best and hope for the best has changed to breed the fastest developing to the most fragile and make a quick buck while the horse can still stand!

I recall that a recent British study showed a higher percentage of catastrophic breakdowns in horses which started at later ages. I know of a study which showed a higher rate of breakdowns on turf vs. dirt. There are definitely a variety of results from different studies that have been done.

There are a lot of interesting variables that I wish could be examined.

Training: When those 2YOs were racing in January - as early as the first and second week of January in some jurisdictions - they were necessarily having real workouts during their yearling year. We hear occasionally of the yearling trials that they used to have as well in the old days. Perhaps the actual racing was an unrelated factor and early training that inevitably accompanied it conferred protective benefit that translated to more starts over more seasons. If that training was a factor in longer careers, was it merely that it was early training, or was it different in some other way than other training methods perhaps correlate less well with more starts/more seasons?

Breed-to-race vs. breed-to-sell: Can it be demonstrated that a higher percentage of horses bred to succeed are the products of breeding programs intended to produce sale horses rather than horses raced by a breeder/owner? If so, I believe it can be shown that treatment of said yearlings is very different. There is experimental evidence suggesting that young animals which are stalled have structural systems less well prepared for work than those which spent critical periods of their development with room to play and run. What else is done to make attractive sales yearlings that might be counterproductive to making sound working animals?

Track surfaces: Are tracks indeed deeper and slower or harder and faster? Some people would like to blame shorter careers on harder, faster surfaces, while others write off the fact that raw times seem to be declining on deeper and slower surfaces. Both can't be true, at least not at the same time on the same track. And how about turf, which is a relatively recent phenomenon in US racing? Anecdotal evidence of older, imported turf horses bucking shins like youngsters if they work or race on dirt is common; is a history of training or racing on turf a risk factor for horses which will ever run or train on the dirt?

Feeds, etc: How have feeding practices changed? How might that affect career longevity? For example, excessively high protein food is blamed for causing soreness, too-fast of growth and probably structural problems in young dogs.

That's just a few ideas aside from the obvious things one could examine about the changing trends in how US thoroughbreds are raced. (ie, if one were to compare the race records of classic starters now vs. the 1960s, you will see fewer starts, debuts at later ages, more races at longer distances and more time between races)