Quote:
Originally Posted by mostpost
A valid point. But is there any proof that more racing would impact breeding negatively? Bold Ruler raced 33 times and carried high weights. Not only was he perhaps the best sire of all time, but his progeny-male progeny-were also excellent sires.
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More racing isn't going to impact breeding at all (except for rare cases involving catastrophic injuries). But more racing does mean more opportunities for losses or even a complete tailing off of form. In other words, there comes a point where the likelihood that you are going increase a horse's stud fees with more racing is low and the possibility that you are going to decrease them is higher. And then add to that (1) the possibility of a catastrophic injury and (2) the cost, in the case of extending careers, of missing a breeding season, and you get the modern philosophy of doing just enough to establish a horse's breeding value and then retiring.
The real difference between now and the halcyon days of old is (a) who owns breeding operations- corporations and partnerships vs. individuals, and (b) the separation of breeding and racing operations through sales. The reason why a lot of colts had long careers back in the old days is because they were owned by rich people who were going to breed them themselves at their own farm when they finished racing, so they weren't giving up a ton in stud fees (or at least did not perceive it that way).
In many ways, I think the big bang of modern racing economics was Secretariat's syndication deal. Secretariat, to be clear, is NOT an example of a modern racehorse- he raced 12 times as a 3 year old, including in spots where he could have gotten beat, and DID get beat three times. But the deal meant that he wouldn't race as a 4 year old (as previous uninjured top horses had), and would never carry 130 pounds (as was standard for top horses in that era). In other words, though not as restrictive as a modern arrangement, it set the precedent that if you had a well bred big stakes winner, you could cash a huge check as long as you played ball with what the breeding industry wanted.
And what the breeding industry has wanted has gotten stricter and stricter since then.
And as I said, the tell that this is just about breeding, and not about the soundness of horses, is that they keep top mares and geldings going. Bob Baffert could run Game on Dude in races he might lose, because it wasn't going to do anything to his stud fee- running Justify in a race he might lose, on the other hand, was off the table, so they concocted an injury and rushed him off to stud.
