Size of Field and Starts Per Horse

[diomed]

Oh BTW, I also agree about the Money factor too. There are so many factors. Steroids, greed...lol.
There could be a genetic reason as well. They are doing much research on the genome as we speak. They could find a "weak bone" gene. I would LMAO if the find it comes from the female line only....(that would get poor Phalaris off the hook).

[LB]

"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?

No, you have NOT eliminated the impossible, nor the improbable. You haven't even acknowledged the elephant in the room. Nobody has, aside from Sysonby.

Here's a quick hop through Canter PA's website:

*"He's an owner/trainer homebred, so all the history comes with him. NO STARTS - he doesn't show the speed so owner says there's no point in racing him. "

*"His trainer is beyond in love with this horse, unfortunately she can not afford to keep him any longer and wants to find someone who will fuss over and adore him as much as she does."

*"An unraced model, she's not even tattooed. She's been with her current trainer for a year and has absolutely no issues at all; she's just not showing the speed to be competitive on the track. "

*"She was in training but really doesn't have the desire to be a racehorse, so rather than push her at something she does not want to do, the owner wants to find her a new career."

*"He is completely sound - he's a turf horse who is not competitive at Philadelphia Park and Penn National's turf is done for the year."

*"A very nice mover, we expect she’ll excel in ANY discipline! Unfortunately, she is not particularly speedy, so rather than put a lot of miles on this girl, her trainer decided it best to find her a more suitable career. "

*"Better One just isn't showing much promise and seems too quiet to run well .... Never raced, this girl has no issues other than a superficial bucked shin."

*"On top of that, this guy only has six starts, so next to no wear or tear; he’s just too slow to make racing a career. "

*"100% SOUND, her trainer has had this horse for two years and assures us she’s never had an issue; she’s just not competitive at Penn and he’d like to find her a more suitable career. "

So....slow, economic hardship, slow, mentally unsuited, slow, slow and mentally unsuited, slow, slow. I chose these from horses five and under, where the reason for retirement was given. Many times it was not.

If it is cost prohibitive to keep a horse in training, the horse who is not paying its bills (slow) will find a new career MUCH more quickly than the one who is winning enough money to offset the cost....either before the first start, or after only a few starts.

If it is cost prohibitive to buy or breed a racehorse, the horse who is not paying its bills will find a new career MUCH more quickly than the one who is winning enough money to stop the bleeding. I've met a million dollar yearling bred like royalty (and I mean ROYALTY, he was a Danehill for heaven's sake) who didn't even race because he was so slow, and was packing a 12-year-old around a pony club course.

Sysonby's point about Hollendorfer is bang-on...the trainer who has a direct economic incentive to run his horses more often runs his horses as often as is reasonable (e.g. when they are fit and healthy and have a really good chance of winning). If a trainer makes more money by keeping the horses in the barn, aka a strong financial incentive to NOT run, then horses won't run. Those horses will find new careers more quickly than horses who race and pay their bills.

So.....track back over the last five years. Cost of entry became very, very high (stud fees, sale prices, pinhooking) so the break-even point got a lot higher. Folks are cutting back on luxuries, of which keeping a race horse is one. Extraneous costs--fuel, anybody? hay a couple of years back?--got higher, pushing that break-even point even higher. And horses who had no possibility of ever getting there, ever, dropped out of the game earlier because they would only make the overhead cost worse.

Chase the mythical genetic soundness fairy or the medication fairy or the track condition fairy all you want...the answer is, and always has been, money.

I made the same point on page one, but you stated it much more eloquently. Thank you.

[Shammy Davis]

Whirlaway: The first link was a chapter from the Science of Bloodstock Breeding, by B. Vijay. You indicated that there was no research, so I posted to show that indeed research is on-going and published. I could post more but much of the research is on "pay" to download sites and it is unlikely that members would be inclined to do so.

Secondly, Larry Bramlage is on a number of industry committees that are researching areas dedicated to the health and welfare of the racehorse. I've posted numerous links concerning him and his work on Louis' "Inbreeding, et al" thread. I'll have to go back and find them for you, but as I understand him, the idea that breeding is substantially involved w/lack of starts is not a consideration that needs to be expanded on currently.

I did come across this link on The Horse website that might be of interest to you and others.

http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=10983

One of the questions that this thread could explore and which I think is basic to any discussion about the breed is the matter of recognizing if the Thoroughbred is physically less sturdy than 50 years ago. If we don't decide this question, then all the other conversation is moot. Unfortunately, the industry over the past 200 years has done little record keeping, so whatever the conclusion it will be subjective at best.

I do recall a quote from Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons that applies. "Speed kills."

Those of us who have been involved w/Louis' inbreeding thread and attempt to post to other threads sometime forget that many members have not followed "Louis and Phalaris" and therefore are not aware of the facts and links previously posted to that thread. For that I apologize. If I came off as abrasive, I'm sorry.

Diomed and Xfactor are trying to move the genetic issues out of the anecdotal into the factual. We should follow their lead, because I'm personally aware of many equine genetic progjects on-going as we post. Admittedly, I get just as lost in the subject of genetics as others, but I do realize that it is the wave of the future and that we'll soon be able to select athletic abilities more precisely before mating.

As for whether the breed is more fragile now, I've concluded for now that it is not. We just have a great many veterinarians and health professionals who are making better salaries who want to keep their professions.

[DDT]

How many of the 71,662 starters in 2009 started less than 6 times?

What is the impact of the Breeders Cup purses as to starts per year?

How many trainers use medications to keep up with the competition not because the horse may need them due to unsoundness?

Breeding for speed is not the only viable reason relating to the decline in average starts per year and I would add to that statement that drugs are the more likely cause, but that is my opinion, I have mine and you have yours.

DDT

[diomed]

Doesn't the fastest horse win the race? Perhaps it should be re-phrased "Breeding for short distance capabilities". LOL.
Seriously though, if they would offer more money for longer races it might change the breeding/training practices that are currently in use. After all, money talks......
Just sayin'..

[kimberley mine]

One of the questions that this thread could explore and which I think is basic to any discussion about the breed is the matter of recognizing if the Thoroughbred is physically less sturdy than 50 years ago. If we don't decide this question, then all the other conversation is moot. Unfortunately, the industry over the past 200 years has done little record keeping, so whatever the conclusion it will be subjective at best.

Okay. Take a horse whose sire is a Hail To Reason line known for 6f sprint speed, whose broodmare sire is a Mr Prospector son, and make him inbred to Native Dancer, Almahmoud, and Hail to Reason. Breed him to a mare whose sire is another Hail To Reason line horse known for, among other things, really poor hind-end conformation and nasty temprament, and whose dam is by a heavily inbred son of Danzig.

Genetic disaster in the making, superstar, well-bred but slow kid's pony? You decide. I will allow that this horse is a mare.

[xfactor fan]

Anyone see Courageous Comet? The retired off track 3 day event horse?

http://www.pedigreequery.com/courageous+comet

This guy raced 36 times, 4 wins, a couple of places, several shows. 71,000 in purse money. Goes on to a world class career as an eventer.

Ran the cross country course after throwing a shoe early on in the course. Didn't phase this guy at all. Owner/rider elected to pull out of the last day--jumping--because he was sore after running without a shoe.


Almost all the usual suspects in unsoundess are in the first 5 generations of his pedigree. Mr Prospector, Nasrullah, Norther Dancer, some of these guys a couple of times.

This is a sound, great looking horse, just from his track record, not a very fast horse running in US conditions.

IF someone could look up his racing record, it would be interesting to see. Was this guy run too early, or at the wrong distances, or what?


The point I'm trying to make is that Diomed is clearly on to something when she equates not enough speed as a major cause of low starts.

Let's face it making a living as a trainer is hard work, the hours are long and the pay off for most small trainers are very low. So they need to follow the money in order to survive.

As for horses getting medications that the trainer doesn't understand, or the horse doesn't need, anyone remember Dutrow and Big Brown? He --the trainer not the horse--gave an interview claiming that he didn't know what steroids did, but Big Brown got them because everybody else did?

[Bast]

Here's an interesting horse from a country where the horses are not "medicated". The horse's pedigree

http://www.pedigreequery.com/so+you+think

contains the usual suspects (he's inbred to Northern Dancer) but look at what he's been doing:

http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/racing-news/2010/october/30/so-you-think-dominates-in-mackinnon-favorite-for-melbourne-cup.aspx

"So You Think dominates in Mackinnon, favorite for Melbourne Cup
Posted: Saturday, October 30, 2010 5:31 PM"

"So You Think stayed unbeaten this season and cemented favoritism for the Emirates Melbourne Cup (Aus-G1) with a dominant victory in the $982,149 Longines Mackinnon Stakes (Aus-G1) on Saturday at Flemington.

The four-year-old High Chaparral (Ire) colt will make the quick turnaround for Melbourne’s signature race on Tuesday...."

"....Entering off a repeat win in the Tatts W. S. Cox Plate (Aus-G1) last weekend, So You Think notched his fifth win at the top level in his 11th career start...."

"....So You Think, who is perfect in five starts this season, covered 2,000 meters (9.94 furlongs) in 2:04.92 on turf rated as soft and will stretch beyond the Cox Plate’s 2,040 meters (10.14 furlongs) for the first time in the 3,200-meter (15.91-furlong) Melbourne Cup."

So, unless I am reading this wrong, this 4 y o has run consecutive weekends AND WON twice at ~ 1 1/4 miles and is FAVORED to win this coming Tuesday at ~ 2 miles in the Melbourne Cup!

NOBODY runs top stakes horses like this in the US, although they once did. Nothing in this colt's pedigree screams that he is something other than what many American bred horses are; he also has lines to Hail to Reason, Never Bend, Nantallah, Round Table, Court Martial, Sharpen Up, with additional crosses to Nearco.

This is just one horse, but So You Think would appear to be a fit horse, well-managed and prepared to race.

[diomed]

I am sure he also wasn't raised on steroids.

[LB]

I am sure he also wasn't raised on steroids.

who raises horses on steroids?

[diomed]

I am sure he also wasn't raised on steroids.

who raises horses on steroids?

I will repost this. It was on the previous page.

Anabolic steroids affect a horse in much the same way they affect a human. They promote rapid muscle growth. But artificially enhanced muscle growth can literally overpower the skeletal structure that supports it — something that is especially problematic in very young horses that are given steroids to prepare them for the major horse sales. Racehorses are also given steroids to keep them racing.

[kimberley mine]

Here's an interesting horse from a country where the horses are not "medicated". The horse's pedigree

http://www.pedigreequery.com/so+you+think



"....So You Think, who is perfect in five starts this season...

So, unless I am reading this wrong, this 4 y o has run consecutive weekends AND WON twice at ~ 1 1/4 miles and is FAVORED to win this coming Tuesday at ~ 2 miles in the Melbourne Cup!

NOBODY runs top stakes horses like this in the US, although they once did. Nothing in this colt's pedigree screams that he is something other than what many American bred horses are; he also has lines to Hail to Reason, Never Bend, Nantallah, Round Table, Court Martial, Sharpen Up, with additional crosses to Nearco.

This is just one horse, but So You Think would appear to be a fit horse, well-managed and prepared to race.

Bast--thank you for making my point for me. Not only has So You Think run twice in a week with one more to go, "five starts this season" for Aussie means that he's run five times since the 1st of September. It's the 31st of October.

Think about that back-to-back victory in the Cox Plate. This horse won a 2000m race at WFA conditions against the best classic horses in Australia, as a 3yo, in the equivalent of February in the northern hemisphere.

The horse I posted about earlier, the guess-who, is More Joyous, by More Than Ready out of a Sunday Silence out of a Danehill. Nothing there but names anybody on this board would recognize, and yet she's trotted off 14 starts with 5 wins as a just-turned 4yo.

Unless you want to argue that there is something magical in the air* in Australia and New Zealand that makes racehorses with the same genetic material miraculously run more often than horses in North America, it looks to me like good horsemen and horsewomen getting their horses fit, keeping them fit, and running them.

*I do, actually, but not the kind of magic that would turn a horse into pegasus.

[LB]

I am sure he also wasn't raised on steroids.

who raises horses on steroids?

I will repost this. It was on the previous page.

Anabolic steroids affect a horse in much the same way they affect a human. They promote rapid muscle growth. But artificially enhanced muscle growth can literally overpower the skeletal structure that supports it — something that is especially problematic in very young horses that are given steroids to prepare them for the major horse sales. Racehorses are also given steroids to keep them racing.

I'm not sure who wrote the quote re steroids from the previous page but the information it contains is sadly out of date. Steroids are illegal at the sales and at all U.S racing jurisdictions. Not to say that their use has disappeared entirely but the concept of a horse being "raised on steroids" is, in the racing world, impossible. Not to mention that even when legal, no one raised horses on steroids. Sales prep--referenced above--starts 6-8 weeks out, not when babies are born.

[Whirlaway]

Trainers who are also owners like Hollendorfer have the luxury to run their horses when they it is in the best interest of the horse whereas trainers who are not owners must run their horses to generate revenue for the owner. And do remember the Size of Field and Starts Per Horse is the AVERAGE annual starts per Thoroughbred - no doubt you can cherry pick thousands of horses with long careers - those Thoroughbreds are atypical. The decline in Size of Fields and Starts per horse has been taking place for some 50 years now - the state of the economy, good or bad, has not halted the decline.

"As for whether the breed is more fragile now, I've concluded for now that it is not. We just have a great many veterinarians and health professionals who are making better salaries who want to keep their professions."

As written in the article in the link posted by Shammy, "From the time man domesticated horses some 5000-6000 years ago, horses have been subject to many forms of artificial selection that have resulted in gradual genetic changes. Differences found among breeds of horses are due to forces of artificial as well as natural selection, in addition to random change."

The breed is not the same as it was 50 years ago, it cannot possibly be - the breed has evolved. I believe that breeding for speed has created a Thoroughbred that it is more fragile now than it was five decades ago and as Bramlage said, "If we keep going at the rate we're going, the logical conclusion is that we'll be down to one start per year for a horse. I don't think we'll ever get there, but this ship will have to right its course."

[Bast]

Unless you want to argue that there is something magical in the air* in Australia and New Zealand that makes racehorses with the same genetic material miraculously run more often than horses in North America, it looks to me like good horsemen and horsewomen getting their horses fit, keeping them fit, and running them.

I don't think it is anything in the air--I think it is in the hands of the horsemen and horsewomen. They are doing something right. Too bad the southern hemisphere timing makes makes the appearance here of horses raised there relatively rare.

Studying their methods would be most interesting.

Can you imagine what could be done to promote racing if we had the kind of horses we had several decades ago when the top horses raced fairly often, and the general public knew their names because they hung around enough to become fan favorites?