The 3-year-old males

[Betsy]

Originally Posted by Danzig

how do you reconcile the two? if you think horses should race more, that there's more to racing than the classics, how can you then defend someone not racing because they only have the derby in their sights?
besides, you've got rht agreeing with you. that ought to tell you you're on the wrong track.

seems like this discussion rolls around every year. horses who haven't race at three are on peoples radar as being the ones to beat, when they've yet to show a thing as a 3 yo. newcomers are dismissed, and fairly often they're the ones to watch.

But I don't think these horses have only the Derby in their sights - at least, that wasn't what I meant to say. I meant that there is more to racing than the TC and horses should be running more. Instead, racing is a means to an an end: the breeding shed. I mean, was there any reason to retire Bernardini? He's just one example - there are tons of others. It's frustrating - it would be like a great baseball player retiring at, say, 26 - before he even hits his prime.

I'm not trying to dismiss the newcomers - every horse at one point was a newcomer - but they have as much to prove (if not more) than the 2 year olds from last year who haven't run. I think they all have things to prove, but my general theory is that of King Glorious - until those promisng babies from last year show they can't do it, then the newcomers will have to show they can (winning a maiden race or an allowance against bad fields doesn't necessarily tell me anything). Any talented maiden victor could turn into a Curlin or a Bernardini, but they might not.

As to RHT and I agreeing, well maybe I'm naive and I'm putting too much trust in Bill Mott; I genuinely have a lot of faith in the horse. There are many reasons why a horse loses the Derby; is there a recent example of a horse that looked to be the best, but lost because he got exhausted down the lane due to insufficient racing (as opposed to tripping on his pedigree)? Live Oak adores THAS, but they also want this horse to be tested, so my guess is that they would be fine with a fairly strenuous FOY. For a very talented horse that's had it fairly easy, this might be enough for him (as opposed to, say, 3 races) prior to the Derby. Maybe an untested horse just needs to be looked in the eye or asked to do things he's not been asked to do before - and maybe if that happens in a race, you don't need more than 2 races to be successful.