Steve Haskin's latest: 'Leave Crown Alone'

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by Danzig

yes, it's true that there have been changes over the years...the preakness used to be before the derby-the derby used to be in mid-week. but the belmont has been run at 12f since 1926, so it's the other races that have changed more recently.
the argument isn't that it's been changed before-the argument for changing it from most seems to be to make it easier to win. everyone knows that most horses kept from winning the tc have been hamstrung by the belmont. thusly, if you change the belmont, you have more t.c. winners. yippee. making it easier, imo, is not a valid argument for change. after all, if it was easy, anyone could do it-it would no longer take a special horse. so what's the point in having it at all?

i agree with haskin. better to do without a tc winner than to dumb it down.

Depends on whether you think it's easier to win. I think the 100m is a harder race to win than the 1500m when I'm watching track and field. Do you agree that more horses can handle 9f than 10f? Nowdays, you might only get a horse or two that can effectively handle the 10f. Don't you think that a race that has 6-7 horses that are capable of handling the distance effectively would make that race tougher to win than one where you only have 1-2? I really think it would make it even harder. Plus, adding a couple more weeks between each race and bringing back the TC bonus would encourage more trainers to run back their good horses in all three races. Perhaps if there were two more weeks between the Derby and Preakness, a bigger purse and the bonus system in place, Birdstone runs in the Preakness and then doesn't have the freshness advantage over a worn-down Smarty Jones.