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Originally Posted by Spalding No!
This would be difficult to do because as you said, there's a big difference between running "off the plane" and getting there well in advance of the race. In fact, it's debatable whether one is more ideal than the other (though superficially, one might think its the latter). Even if we had the bare-bone stats on the shippers, we probably wouldn't know which horses were there early and which ones shipped-in only a couple of days before the race.
Personally, unless the acclimation period is months ahead of the game (e.g., Curlin and Chrome in Dubai), I would think that running off the plane is the best approach. Allowing a horse to "acclimate" to a new surface is risky unless it is done gradually. However, in our case, these horses are at the same time actively targeting a specific race so the trainer can't really "back off" to let the horse adjust slowly. Who can forget the air that was let out of the 1997 BC when early arrivals--and morning line favorites-- Singspiel (breezing on the grass) and Formal Gold (routine gallop) both broke down while training at Hollywood Park?
Additionally, horses are at risk for illnesses related to shipping and getting there early only lends more time for bugs to incubate and manifest into a problem before the race.
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Based on gambling experience in high quality races (no hard data), I always thought it was way easier to ship from CA to NY off the plane than the other way around. A lot of guys have done really well coming into NY for as far back as I can remember (which is decades). I've read theories on why it was tougher to go to CA, but that's all speculation.
