It is hard to compare US racing versus the UK and France. For one thing, nobody is racing in the UK to make money. It is a sport, plain and simple, the purses are way too low to even consider it as a capitalistic venture. The purses in France are higher than the UK for sure, but once again, it is pretty hard to envision a scenario where you can expect to turn a profit.
In the US, you can make money with any level horse if you are fortunate enough. However, being able to claim a horse, drop it down, get it claimed and still turn a profit has led to a scenario where it looks like a good percentage of the equine athletes are for rent rather than for sale. Where back in the day you would see horses given 2-4 month breaks every year or so, today it is more likely to see a horse just continuously dropping in class in order to compete. In addition, the number of conditioned races abroad make jamming a horse way more difficult than it is here via claiming races.
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