BloodHorse published a report called, "Losing the Iron Horse?" Their stats showed a remarkable drop in the number of starts of horses from the 1950s to the present day. After the statistical analysis, they assembled a group of breeders. As one might imagine, there was not a consensus among them, but I would bet that their thoughts are pretty well mirrored by breeders all over. Breeding for selling over winning, breeding for quick-maturing speed over soundness, with an emphasis on getting 2-year-olds on the track, was repeatedly cited. "Sadly, commercial breeders now are not horsemen or educated, and their idea of planning a mating is going through The Blood-Horse auction guide and seeing who had the highest weanling average. That's not planning a mating."
Also mentioned more than once was the idea of adopting the International Racing Federation's zero tolerance no medication raceday policy, which makes sense to me.
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06-22-2010, 02:38 PM
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