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[azeri98]

Originally Posted by dilanesp

They are the future. Look at how they retire top 3 year olds for even minor injuries, the sorts of things that years ago would have earned the horse some rest before a 4 year old campaign. (If you compare any of these injuries to the sorts of injuries that Citation and Seabiscuit suffered mid-career, there's no comparison.)

Look at American Pharoah. 3 races after the TC, retire after the BC Classic.

Look at Justify. 6 races total, retires immediately after the TC.

And now Flightline.

We will still see long campaigns, but only in three categories of horses:

Mares, like Beholder, who don't offer guaranteed profit in the breeding shed- they have to drop a live foal that makes it at least to the sales, and they only birth one per year.

Geldings, like Game on Dude.

Colts who are less attractive to the breeding industry, like California Chrome.

But the era of a top colt having a career like Affirmed had are over. And the sport suffers for it.

It's because the breeding value of horse like this is too large to give up. If the breeding value was the same when Bid ran, I doubt he would have run as long.