Tom Chuckas on Preakness/TC Spacing

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Danzig

Racing doesnt ruin their.careers. success, breeder demand, and disparity between pursrs ajd stud fees ruins their racing careers. Making easier racing only makes it easier for less hardy animals to do enough to get them into a shed, thus further hurting the breed itself. Two of last years classic winners remain in training.
Its funny, i saw a comment the other day that suggested will take charge would race too much this year.
Hmmm..
Just visited bloodhorse, with articles about verrazano, third in europe, and revolutionary who won the special. Those two, and others in the special ran in last years classics. With breeders going with tried and true studs right now, youre not seeing the demand for fresh faces in the barn...so they stay in training.

Palace Malice is the only TC race winner from last year that's not retired and he didn't run in all 3 races. Orb and Oxbow are retired. Will Take Charge wasn't competitive in the Preakness (finished 7th) or Belmont (finished 10th). He got beat by a combined 45 lengths in the 3 TC races (although he did have an excuse in the Derby). I was specifying horses that run in all 3 TC races and run well in all 3 races. Verrazano only ran in one TC race.

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

Palace Malice is the only TC race winner from last year that's not retired and he didn't run in all 3 races. Orb and Oxbow are retired. Will Take Charge wasn't competitive in the Preakness (finished 7th) or Belmont (finished 10th). He got beat by a combined 45 lengths in the 3 TC races (although he did have an excuse in the Derby). I was specifying horses that run in all 3 TC races and run well in all 3 races. Verrazano only ran in one TC race.

Oh, so the spacing is only taxing if you're competitive. And the ones who win typically are given very little chance to follow up because no one wants a dirty resume hitting the stud fee too much.
Yeah, you're right. A bigger break would guarantee more starts for classic winners.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Danzig

Oh, so the spacing is only taxing if you're competitive. And the ones who win typically are given very little chance to follow up because no one wants a dirty resume hitting the stud fee too much.
Yeah, you're right. A bigger break would guarantee more starts for classic winners.

In general, the harder a horse runs, the more tired he's going to be and the more rest he will need. I don't think the TC races took as much out of Will Take Charge as they did out of Oxbow. Oxbow ran much harder in the TC races. In general, when a horse doesn't run a lick, he's not going to be as tired as a horse who ran really hard.

You are right that after a horse wins the Derby, the connections are going to be very selective in the races they choose. That is a totally different issue from horses getting hurt and not being able to run again. If you have a horse that wins one or two of the TC races, you're still going to want to see your horse run in the BC Classic and maybe a couple of other big races like The Travers. There could be a case of some huge stud deal and a sound horse retiring but I can't think of any such cases in the last 30 years. Most horses who were retired were retired because of injury. Do you think Oxbow could have run again? Do you think I'll Have Another could have run again? The answer is "no" on those two. How about Bodemeister? Possibly, the following year.

Sure there may have been a few horses where the vet told the connections that the horse might be able to come back the following year. But in most of those cases, it's not really worth the risk if the horse has good value as a stallion. An example would be Bodemeister. If I remember correctly, I think he had some nerve injury in his shoulder. That's a little bit of an unusual injury and I think the prognosis on that is questionable. It could go either way. He might come back 100%. It's probably 50/50. The horse is worth about $10 million as a stallion. Would you really want to roll the dice and bring him back as a 4 year old when he may not even be the same horse? In a situation like that, most owners are probably going to retire the horse.