"Do We Need a Sturdier Racehorse?"

[Kasept]

If you've listened to ATR the last few days, we've been asking guests for their interpretations of the themes Bill Finley addressed in his excellent and extensive 'Do We Need a Sturdier Racehorse?' piece for Thoroughbred Daily News. The questions raised by Finley focus around why racehorses today appear less sound, or perhaps more directly, less capable of hearty campaigns. Essentially, the question is asked "Why is a 5 or 6 start season and 8-12 start career typical for today's 'best' horses?"

Here is the pdf: http://www.thoroughbreddailynews.com...0Racehorse.pdf

It's a fascinating topic that has no one 'correct' answer...

Has breeding weakened the thoroughbred?

Are training methods to blame?

Under or Over training/racing of young horses?

Lasix and other medication reliance?

Track surfaces?

Bloodstock or Horse Owner economics?

Trainer statistical awareness and effect?

Sheet figure 'bounce' philosophy?

Please read Finley's piece, vote in the poll and share your extended thoughts. I think it's as important a discussion as there is regarding the game currently.

[Danzig]

i think the number one culprit in the changes to the sport/breed would be commercial breeders. horses raised like hothouse flowers, not allowed to romp in fields to get much needed exercise. instead, they are stall kept to keep from marring their coats, limbs, because they won't bring as much at auction if they aren't perfect. surgeries to correct impairments to make them look good. steroids to make them look big, fit. then there's the fear of running a horse enough to bring losses, as that affects stud fees when they retire.

in 'the good old days' breeders raced their horses to show they had the right breeding programs, to show off the results of their hard work at finding just the right combination of sire and dam which could take years of hard work to create good families. the colts and fillies showcased the stallion, who got more business because he showed he could get a good horse. his progeny raced often, and for years, to show off a farm and it's efforts. now, it's race enough to get a gr 1 and retire to chase that money.
the sport isn't about racing now, it's about money. it's why i still root for the few farms with homebreds and old school methods like claiborne, and of course the phipps.

[Echo Farm]

Good topic.

I'm no expert or even that knowledgeable about equine physiology, but I would think they don't get enough physical training and exercise.
Human athletes regularly workout. Even Tiger Woods trains 2-10 hours every day when not playing.

(I'm assuming that's in addition to his evening workouts)

[Thunder Gulch]

There is no simple answer, and reasons may vary from case to case, but I do think that the trainers getting on board with "sheet" style patterning for their horses has been a huge detriment. That doesn't mean their method doesn't work, but it is changing the approach a lot of trainers are taking. A lot of these arguments presented go back 20 years, breeding, surfaces, medication, juvenile training/racing, but I think that everyone trying to space races for a "peak" effort is the biggest problem. It has only been 15 years since Cigar was 10 for 10 and Mineshaft won 7 of 9 just seven short years ago....However, when Ghostzapper ran off the page multiple times in spaced races (by necessity) in 2004, the winds started to shift. It was just a few years later that Street Sense wins the Derby off of 2 starts, which was the first time that happened in 25 years. Now the argument can be made that these carefully mapped programs were protecting the investment from the perils of racing, but regardless of why, everyone starts buying into the race-rest-train-race programs. Then you get the wildly popular Zenyatta team protecting a streak, and the notion of racing into shape is completely gone. The "tightener" and allowance prep races are a thing of the past.

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by Echo Farm

Good topic.

I'm no expert or even that knowledgeable about equine physiology, but I would think they don't get enough physical training and exercise.
Human athletes regularly workout. Even Tiger Woods trains 2-10 hours every day when not playing.

(I'm assuming that's in addition to his evening workouts)

There are very few similarities between humans and horses, most notable among the differences the number of legs each has.

[Cannon Shell]

It is interesting that basic field size has remained the same despite the drop in number of starts per year per horse.

The thing that always baffles me is how the period of the 70's when there was an unprecedented jump in the number of horses produced always seems to escape people when they talk about the "weakening" of the breed. You dont have to be an expert to understand that the average horse in a foal crop of 60000 is "weaker" than the average horse in a foal crop of 25000. This is even more pronounced when you remember that the breed is selected, not naturally occurring. Lesser breeding stock was allowed into the gene pool in order to increase the numbers so dramatically.

[keithting]

Lasix, lasix, and more lasix.....

It works the same way in humans - the more medicine you take, the "less hearty" you become and the more medical problems that eventually result.

There was also a great roundtable article in the Bloodhorse several years ago (around 2008). One of the panel members talked about the lower nutrient quality in equine feed today. I believe that this is also true in humans where our foodstuff has less nutrients and vitamin-content than it did say 80 years ago.

[Sightseek]

Originally Posted by keithting

Lasix, lasix, and more lasix.....

It works the same way in humans - the more medicine you take, the "less hearty" you become and the more medical problems that eventually result.

There was also a great roundtable article in the Bloodhorse several years ago (around 2008). One of the panel members talked about the lower nutrient quality in equine feed today. I believe that this is also true in humans where our foodstuff has less nutrients and vitamin-content than it did say 80 years ago.

I would disagree and say that nutrition is much better due to better studies on supplements and absorbability and the overall accessability of supplements.

While the commercial market has encouraged the breeding of more precocious types, I think the way horses are campaigned now gives a greater perception of increased fraility than really exists.

[johnny pinwheel]

I would say all of the above except over racing 2 yo's if anything they are under raced and the breed is weakening from all factors. two year olds run like 3 to 4 times and thats it, many don't race at all or once. everyone talks about the 2 yo crop but it does not matter anymore because there will be at least half a dozen horses going for the derby next year that we have not even heard of yet. and the handful thats on everyones radar that won't even make it until spring.(its like a yearly tradition now). the breed is definetly weaker. the training methods are out of necessity because many horses can't make a hard campaign. i don't know, maybe a race every two or 3 months or more is what they consider a "hard" campaign now!!! but it is killing the following of average folks and media coverage. "average joe" in his arm chair is not going to be captured by some horse that wins 4 times a year and retires.............name recognition is the name of any game......stars sell.......flashes in the pan are not remembered by people that are not avid fans! thats what we get now and it does not sell this game AT ALL! as someone else stated , once farms went from an outfit of "winning" to the greed of "breeding" the game has gone down hill and hard! now, you've got "investment" groups coming into horse racing. It used be a sport where the owners of the best horses wanted to win and brag......the money was an after thought. Most of them had money(from other sources) and didn't care if they made a dime........they wanted to say they had the fastest horse. theres a reason it was called the sport of kings.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by keithting

Lasix, lasix, and more lasix......

Lasix has nothing at all do with affecting structural soundness of bone, tendon and muscle.

The statement, "It works the same way in humans - the more medicine you take, the "less hearty" you become and the more medical problems that eventually result" is a gross generality tending towards falseness, not truth.

To make strong-boned horses, you have to train them and run them when the bone is quickly able to respond to develop into strong bone (young horses). To develop a big efficient cardiovascular system, same thing.

When the PETA and AR yahoos came after horse racing for racing young horses, vets involved in horse racing accumulated the studies done over time and provided the backdrop to prove that if we stop racing young horses, we'll break down a whole lot more.

And as Sightseek pointed out, nutrition is improved nowadays, with most nutritional problems now being from oversupplementation and overnutrition, not deficiency. There is a concern with some strains of foodstuffs (grains) not having the nutritional breadth of the past (due to years of selection for other factors) but the nutritional profiles of grain mixes can be readily ascertained nowadays.

[Round Pen]

Originally Posted by Danzig

i think the number one culprit in the changes to the sport/breed would be commercial breeders. horses raised like hothouse flowers, not allowed to romp in fields to get much needed exercise. instead, they are stall kept to keep from marring their coats, limbs, because they won't bring as much at auction if they aren't perfect. surgeries to correct impairments to make them look good. steroids to make them look big, fit. then there's the fear of running a horse enough to bring losses, as that affects stud fees when they retire.

in 'the good old days' breeders raced their horses to show they had the right breeding programs, to show off the results of their hard work at finding just the right combination of sire and dam which could take years of hard work to create good families. the colts and fillies showcased the stallion, who got more business because he showed he could get a good horse. his progeny raced often, and for years, to show off a farm and it's efforts. now, it's race enough to get a gr 1 and retire to chase that money.
the sport isn't about racing now, it's about money. it's why i still root for the few farms with homebreds and old school methods like claiborne, and of course the phipps.

You absolutely hit the nail right on the head babies need to be babies. Just think about it from the time a horse is born till the time it makes its first start, there is a possibilty that horse could go through 3 or 4 sales. and when there in a sale they are in a stall sometimes weeks or even a couple of months prior to the sale. And that time spent in a stall could be spent romping around in a paddock and that is what builds bone when there young.

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by Round Pen

You absolutely hit the nail right on the head babies need to be babies. Just think about it from the time a horse is born till the time it makes its first start, there is a possibilty that horse could go through 3 or 4 sales. and when there in a sale they are in a stall sometimes weeks or even a couple of months prior to the sale. And that time spent in a stall could be spent romping around in a paddock and that is what builds bone when there young.

I dont think this is the majority of horses though. Disproportionally horses raised like this are the best bred ones which is hurting the top of the game which is the most visable obviously.

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

The thing that always baffles me is how the period of the 70's when there was an unprecedented jump in the number of horses produced always seems to escape people when they talk about the "weakening" of the breed. You dont have to be an expert to understand that the average horse in a foal crop of 60000 is "weaker" than the average horse in a foal crop of 25000. This is even more pronounced when you remember that the breed is selected, not naturally occurring. Lesser breeding stock was allowed into the gene pool in order to increase the numbers so dramatically.

This doesn't make sense at all to me.

The more breeding you do - the better your population should get over time.

Speed wins horse races - and early developing horses are always attractive to owners - that's what the market wants.

Lets say there's no purse money for winning or order of finish at all - and horses are simply asked to race 30 times a year with limited medication for three straight years under the same training program . If you use the 5% of males who best stand up to this type of program - and keep breeding them to a hundred mares each ... I doubt you'd see a weakening breed.

Horses, however slowly they run, who can simply answer the bell over and over without much medication aren't the ones rewarded to stand stud.

The ones rewarded to stud are the ones who are simply the standout performers and can run the fastest six or seven times a year - and do so with the aid of medication that is helpful to their performance.

Winning matters. If the sport was Commie run - the breed would be a whole lot tougher even if you're letting every single female who wasn't euthanized from racing into the gene pool.

[hockey2315]

Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS

This doesn't make sense at all to me.

The more breeding you do - the better your population should get over time.

Not really, which is why Chuck used the word "average." In order to produce more foals, stock that was once considered unworthy of being bred was introduced. Once those inferior influences made their way in, the breed as a whole was weakened.

[Riot]

This doesn't make sense at all to me. The more breeding you do - the better your population should get over time.

That's a measurable quantity, the breeding boom has been looked at, and Chuck's right: If you breed 20,000 horses, and have 10,000 end up "race quality", breeding 35,000 horses doesn't get you any more race quality, it just gets you more crap on the bottom, because it's an increase in breeding lesser-quality animals, not best-quality. Weird but genetically true. Breed more = less quality (unless you go to genetic cloning)

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS

This doesn't make sense at all to me.

The more breeding you do - the better your population should get over time.

Speed wins horse races - and early developing horses are always attractive to owners - that's what the market wants.

Lets say there's no purse money for winning or order of finish at all - and horses are simply asked to race 30 times a year with limited medication for three straight years under the same training program . If you use the 5% of males who best stand up to this type of program - and keep breeding them to a hundred mares each ... I doubt you'd see a weakening breed.

Horses, however slowly they run, who can simply answer the bell over and over without much medication aren't the ones rewarded to stand stud.

The ones rewarded to stud are the ones who are simply the standout performers and can run the fastest six or seven times a year - and do so with the aid of medication that is helpful to their performance.

Winning matters. If the sport was Commie run - the breed would be a whole lot tougher even if you're letting every single female who wasn't euthanized from racing into the gene pool.

Obviously breeding isnt an exact science but in trying to breed the best horses, mares and stallions were selectively chosen, matched and culled. Mares that had the credentials to breed but failed to have good foals were taken out of the population. Stallions that did not cut it stopped breeding.

When you stop being particular about not only the paper aspects of breeding but the physical aspects then you get an inferior product.

Obviously in the 70's there was a boom in both the racetrack business as winter racing in the North expanded and more and more trakcs were open and more races were run. As the population expanded, the overall quality declined. If the NFL expanded to 90 teams, don't you think the quality of the average player would decline?

[Round Pen]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

I dont think this is the majority of horses though. Disproportionally horses raised like this are the best bred ones which is hurting the top of the game which is the most visable obviously.

Respectfully disagree take the 1st book out of the Keeneland yearling sale and thats 4,000 take another 1000 in the OBS August sale then take 1200 in the OBS April Sale thats a whole lots of of middle of the road horses and bottom of the barrell types that get hot housed just like the top tier ones and that does not even begin to count all the fasig tipton sales like Oct yearling which had 1300 this year and all there 2 year old sales with the cream of the crop being in Miami.

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by Round Pen

Respectfully disagree take the 1st book out of the Keeneland yearling sale and thats 4,000 take another 1000 in the OBS August sale then take 1200 in the OBS April Sale thats a whole lots of of middle of the road horses and bottom of the barrell types that get hot housed just like the top tier ones and that does not even begin to count all the fasig tipton sales like Oct yearling which had 1300 this year and all there 2 year old sales with the cream of the crop being in Miami.

Why would you take the first book of keeneland out? Those are the most likely to be pampered. I have a hard time believing that the vast majority of OBS horses are hothoused.

There certainly arent 4000 keeneland horses or virtually any in the Oct sale taht are hothoused. The ones kept in the stall that sell in the Oct sale are just crippled.

And how do you hot house horses in training?

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by hockey2315

Not really, which is why Chuck used the word "average." In order to produce more foals, stock that was once considered unworthy of being bred was introduced. Once those inferior influences made their way in, the breed as a whole was weakened.

This makes no sense at all to me.

Maybe I'm in way over my head with a goofy subject like this - If these inferior influences that made their way in, were truly inferior influences, their offspring would still have no lasting impact on the breed going forward. They'd die out in all lines save the tail female line.

You're more apt to get better from a pool of 50,000 than 5,000 - and the best of the best will continue being bred to each other all the time.

The size of the foal crops have been trimmed significantly since 1986 - has this resulted in a better racing product and less weakened horses?

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

Obviously breeding isnt an exact science but in trying to breed the best horses, mares and stallions were selectively chosen, matched and culled. Mares that had the credentials to breed but failed to have good foals were taken out of the population. Stallions that did not cut it stopped breeding.

When you stop being particular about not only the paper aspects of breeding but the physical aspects then you get an inferior product.

So - in theory - if they just took the 25 best stallions in the country and bred them among the 2,500 best and most qualified mares in the country ... breeding this pool of about maybe just 1,200 future horses to start in a race after careful culling and what not ... is going to lead to a stronger breed over time?

Of the 1,200 well bred suitable looking horses - you'll probably still get 1,197 complete turtles. All but maybe one or two of the males will be completely useless in breeding going forward. Breed 50,000 instead of 2,500 - and you'll be hitting a lot of unexpected touchdowns and hail marys all over the place... but for the most part, the same 25 most fashionable sires will still be getting the same pack of most choicy mares.