Quote:
Originally Posted by classhandicapper
I have no idea when it started, it's actually the opposite. For decades horses used to race heavily at 2. It wasn't until recent years that the schedule started getting lighter and lighter.
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I have racing forms from the 1980's with horses entered in the Derby with 20 starts.
Indeed, one of the now-discarded handicapping angles of the Derby was that you needed a certain number of starts, and a certain number of starts as a 3 year old, to win it. When Seattle Slew won it in his 7th career start in 1977, that was considered a major anomaly, for instance.
