Current TC Spacing Dates Back to 1969

[Danzig]

tradition is what's going on at the time. that's not why i say don't change it.

i say don't change it because there's no reason to. especially after looking into the current amount of close calls, and the fact that you had 1/4th of the tc winners after the current setup was put in place.
two of the three ran at four.
most of those who almost made it ran again at three with success, and ran at four, also successfully. the ones who didn't, one retired due to breeding demand (smarty) another due to breakdown.
as for i'll have another, weren't there soundness questions from the get go about him?

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Danzig

tradition is what's going on at the time. that's not why i say don't change it.

i say don't change it because there's no reason to. especially after looking into the current amount of close calls, and the fact that you had 1/4th of the tc winners after the current setup was put in place.
two of the three ran at four.
most of those who almost made it ran again at three with success, and ran at four, also successfully. the ones who didn't, one retired due to breeding demand (smarty) another due to breakdown.
as for i'll have another, weren't there soundness questions from the get go about him?

I think times have changed a lot between the 1970s and now. I think the horses are much more fragile now than they were in the 70s. Anyway, it will be interesting to see how things play out this year and over the next 25 years. I think the horses these days are so fragile that you may only see a TC winner maybe once every 25 year or so in the future. I could be dead wrong but that is my opinion. I think it literally takes a "Super Horse" to do it.

Don't get me wrong. I think it should be extremely difficult to win the TC. It should be so difficult that only the kind of horse that comes around once a decade should be able to do it. But I think it's to the point where it's much tougher than that. I think we are to the point now where it takes a "Super horse" that only comes around once every 25-50 years. I could be totally wrong because the fact that there hasn't been a winner in 36 years could be a fluke. If you have an event that normally happens 10% of the time, it would not be that unusual to have an 0 for 36 streak. Looking at 36 events is not really that big of a sample. It could be a fluke but I don't think so.

Anyway, it is to the point where some people in the industry including owners, trainers, and track operators think that this is a discussion worth having. The powers that be will discuss this and weigh the pros and cons to making a change. As I said before, if they do make a change I hope it is only a minor change. If they shortened all the distances and did it over 8-9 weeks, I think that would ruin it. Those races would just be like any other races. I wouldn't want that to happen.