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Originally Posted by redlandb
This whole argument reminds me of health care in America...
The costs are out of control, because the cost to provide that service is too great due to the research/breeding needed to get there.
In health care, we run needless test after needless test in order to catch the 1% mystery illness, while the costs are 500% greater than without the tests.
In horse racing, we are stuck with these takeout hikes, which feed the purse increase, which feeds breeding, that finally provides horses that runs 4 seconds faster on a mile race.
So, I would ask, is it really worth the added cost (takeout), just to run a little faster?
If owners of $2500 claimers can survive on $4000 purses, why can the big owners? Costs I know...Just to run faster.
In the end, lower the purses, lower the takeout, lower the quality of the animals, and let them get there 4 seconds slower.
I want this sport to get back to being built of the love of the race, not what we have now.
I am sorry, if I am a short sighted honky who doesn't bet $100's per race.
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I was thinking the same thing as I was writing about starting a horseplayer owned track. Do we really need to continue making the breed faster and faster. Why not put more stamina back in the breed and then when economics change start breeding for speed again?
Steven Roman, in his book on dosage (
http://www.pacefigures.com/dosage.pdf), wrote eloquently about something that some people critically refer to as "cheap speed":
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Originally Posted by Steve Roman
As described earlier, there is another kind of speed - that of instantaneous speed or, more realistically, fractional speed and pace. If one wishes to consider the truly fastest horses, then there are a host of runners capable of getting the first quarter mile in 21 seconds plus or minus a fraction. Quite often they flash their speed for only a brief time in the early stages of a race, usually tiring dramatically well before the finish. Many call this "cheap speed". It is only “cheap” because it is not expressed over the full distance of a race. Actually it is not “cheap” at all. It is as valid a physiological expression as any other kind of speed. It just so happens that it occurs at one extreme of the speed frontier and well outside our normal frame of reference for conventional racing. We view these runners in the same way we view runners at the other end of the continuum, say three miles. In the end, we are drawn to speed displayed at distances that we, as a society, prefer to race. Within those bounds, all record holders are essentially equally fast in terms of genetic expression.
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At Bush League Downs, I intend to card races that allow horses the chance to express their varied genetic potential and display their aptitudinal type over a range of distances.
