I think every young thoroughbred dreams of doing well in the triple crown races, not for the glory achieved during the 6 week run, but due to the studding duties that follow. Let's face it, for most thoroughbreds it's stud farm or glue factory. This year, well come fall there's going to be a lot of pent up 3 year old stallions with no track record (hey is that literally where the term comes from) to lean on when attempting to woo the phillies.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this, and it's probably something that shouldn't be made light of as I'm not sure how thoroughbred racing has honestly survived the last 20 years and a year without the spring and summer season will likely spell the end for many trainers, breeders, tracks and other operational facilities. I still wouldn't recommend adopting a 2,000lb sexually frustrated adolescent animal though. Even if you are finishing removing the sound deadening from your project car.
No nothing about horse racing.
Love Bob Baffert, and love going to Santa Anita to see all the other posuers like me pretend. Once a year fun.
I kinda want horse racing to stick around here, so when I whine at marxists about government waste, and they challenge me to come up with a program to cut, I can say, "Stop subsidizing horse racing." And they all go, "Ohhh." and stop arguing.
Yes, the Saskatchewan government subsidizes horse breeders.
Horse racing needs to go away. Barbaric Sport
Horse racing doesn't need to go away, they just need to stop racing such young horses, that would get rid of a lot of the injuries. Sure, you would never see any track records broken again, but the sport might survive.
The Kentucky Derby has been postponed until September. Trust me when I say that Kentuckians are stressing over this!
The real problem isn't racing horses too young, it's not racing them long enough. There is no breeding for durability anymore and you end up with horses with lighter/thinner bones who are more prone to breaking down. It could be fixed in short order by requiring any horse have a track record of 50-75 finishes before being allowed to reproduce (stud farm/brood mare duty). As it is, some horses go to stud with as few as 5 finishes. But with the stud fees (easy 6 figure multiple times a day) some of them can command it would take legislative rulings to make it happen.
Source: grew up on thoroughbred farms, still have strong contacts in the industry.
It's a bad year to have it be your rookie season for anything. Or an Olympian. Or........ a horse.
I really enjoy horse racing. Animal Rights ignored, I love the analysis that is done to bet on the races. I go to OTB anywhere from 1-5 times a month - never spend more than $10 on bets, sometimes I'm up, sometimes I'm down, usually I'm slightly down for the year (slightly being about $25).
But I'm not sure how horse racing is going to survive. Online betting, I suppose.
