Get ready for smaller field sizes

[PatCummings]

Originally Posted by Frost King

Just out of curiosity, anybody know what percentage of the annual foal crop makes it too the races? The only thing I see happening, is that animals that would have been culls for racing, are going to end up in training to feed the racing shortage. In turn diluting the quality of racing even more.

This was discussed at the conference in the same presentation, and while I don't recall the exact numbers, the trends showed across all age groups, the percentages of horses within a foal crop racing at ages three through nine was down 10-20% since 2003.

It's not just the change in how much racing there is, or field size, but that fewer horses within each crop are making it to races, and actually hanging around.