Another word on 'freshness'?

[Five Star Derek]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

Racing is completely different overseas. There are many possible reasons as to why they can run more often over there. In US races, horss are often times running hard the entire race. In Europe, they often times just gallop the entire race and only run their hardest the final quarter or 3/8 of a mile. They train the horses totally differenty over there. They give them these long gallops on soft grass. Here they train them on the hard dirt and they have to train them for speed since the fractions of our races are very fast.

From training on the dirt, horses in this country get all kinds of foot problems that are pretty much non-existant in Europe. To suggest that horses here could run more often since they run more often in Europe is absurd.

Guys like Frankel have been training for over 30 years. He's run thousand of horses on 3 weeks rest and he's run thousands of horses on 4-5 weeks rest. So have all the other trainers. They have seen that horses run much better and stay sounder if you give them more time between races. This is no great mystery. I don't get why some of you don't understnad this. It's not really that complicated.

Rupert-I respect your opinions and look forward to your posts but I think you need to give a little more credence to some of the information that some people have posted concerning racing frequency. I'm not saying that I neccesarily agree with all of this but I can't dismiss it so quickly as you seem to be able to do. The previous thread dealing with this has caused me to do my own research and forced me to think "outside the box" a little bit instead of using convetional wisdom. There is too much data available to simply just ignore. I am still very much on the fence about this but am planning to do a very thorough investigation into this to find out more. I am a novice when it comes to racing outside of the US and Canada so I am in no position to have a definitve opinion on the matter. I'm just saying that you have too much to offer in terms of knowledge and input to be so close minded when it comes to this issue.

Clearly the Breeders' Cup changed the schedules for horses after 1984. Now horses 'debut' in late spring on their way to a campaign toward the Breeders' Cup. Pletcher and Frankel are examples of the 'new' trainers who cannot and will not run their horses too much for fear of losing. Gone are the days when you went to Belmont in the fall to see the top horses run three Grade I races in a five week period in the Fall Triple Crown. Mineshaft would have run in all three, but the Marlboro Cup no longer exists. I shall take Old School over this any day.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Five Star Derek

Rupert-I respect your opinions and look forward to your posts but I think you need to give a little more credence to some of the information that some people have posted concerning racing frequency. I'm not saying that I neccesarily agree with all of this but I can't dismiss it so quickly as you seem to be able to do. The previous thread dealing with this has caused me to do my own research and forced me to think "outside the box" a little bit instead of using convetional wisdom. There is too much data available to simply just ignore. I am still very much on the fence about this but am planning to do a very thorough investigation into this to find out more. I am a novice when it comes to racing outside of the US and Canada so I am in no position to have a definitve opinion on the matter. I'm just saying that you have too much to offer in terms of knowledge and input to be so close minded when it comes to this issue.

My opinion is based on 25 years of experience as both a handicapper and an owner. I've literally handicapped tens of thousands of races over the last 25 years. If there was only thing I've learned over all these years it would be that horses do not last and do not stay in form if you run them too often. This is something that I have learned.

Let me give you an analogy. Let's say that there are two possible routes that you can take to get home from work. You're not sure which route is quicker, so you try them both. You switch off practically every day for several months. If Route #1 usually takes you 20 minutes to get home and Route #2 usually takes you 30 minutes to get home, and you know that from trying it 50 times, then I think you will be very confident that Route #1 is quicker. If you tell me that you are sure that Route #1 is quicker, I could tell you that you are being close-minded. That would be pretty silly on my part though because if you are basing your opinion on experience, and you had no preconceived notions, then I think you should be confident that your opinion is correct. I shouldn't even call it an opinion. It would actually be a fact that Route #1 is quicker.