Last weekend while watching the Belmont Stakes, I had a disturbing thought: The Triple Crown is now “ridiculous.”Not in a singular way, but ridiculous on two very important fronts. It didn’t used to be, but it is in 2010.
Now, before you start writing your angry comments, hear me out.
If you could find some savvy animal experts from some other planet (or at least a developed nation that wasn’t familiar with horse racing) and you couched the question in the particular fashion below, what sort of response would you get?
So let’s break it down to the basic elements and not consider all the plethora of mitigating and complicating factors. If you told our independent focus group that the sport’s marquis event involved animals who average six or seven events per year competing in three events over a five week period all at distances longer than their previous race or the average race nationally and that two of the races are run at distances that these horses may well never run again (and that are hardly ever run, period), what would they say?
How about, “that’s ridiculous.” And they might follow that up with "What's wrong with you people?"It’s like the World Cup matches being longer and played on a bigger field with a different ball. The Indy 500? How about 750 miles making right hand turns with less fuel. The Super Bowl? Three downs, 125 yard field, narrower goal post with just two days (not two weeks) between the championship games and the Super Bowl itself.
Put the Triple Crown in a comparable frame of reference with other major sports and what we do seems pretty ridiculous when compared to the "regular season" of racing.
Or simply compare the Triple Crown to the Breeders Cup. When we test the champions of each division on BC Day, the races are run at appropriate distances. We don't ask a horse to run the Breeders Cup Sprint going seven furlongs or a flat mile, and we don't ask the horses in the Breeders Classic to prove themselves at 12 furlongs even if it is November. But we still ask three-year-olds to win three races in the spring going distances they have never run and are unlikely (save the Travers and a few big races for older horses) to run again.
The outside observer would call that "counter intuitive" at best.
Of course the Triple Crown is a test – a stern test. It’s not meant to be won by every good horse, just the really great ones. But racing has evolved while the modern racehorse has devolved to a place where the entire concept seems…well…ridiculous, and, quite frankly, almost (if not completely) impossible to accomplish.It’s been 32 years since the great Affirmed did it. Today, the modern breeding and racing industries are burdened by crushing economics (OK, and maybe some greed) which have caused an emphasis on and reliance upon more speed, shorter races and earlier racing.
The value and earning potential of the small elite group of Grade I stakes horses seems to have created racing and training patterns that diminish rather than enhance long careers while decreasing the ability to win at distances beyond 9 furlongs. And many of the ones that do find their way to the winners’ circle in Kentucky and New York on the first Saturday’s of May and June don’t have a major impact on the breed as stallions.
Either way, breeders want to either sell their horses for a profit or get them to the racetrack and earning money as fast as possible. Costs are so high to produce and train these horses that nobody can blame breeders and owners for looking for the fastest possible return on these major investments. If this were Europe where the owners are still primarily part of the wealthy class of sportsmen (a dwindling group here in the U.S.), this might be different. But, this is America, we are turbo-charged capitalist and our industry runs on money.
As a result, we find our industry mired in a Catch 22 which may well preclude the production of a sufficient number of classic horses while actually hindering the development so desperately needed to withstand these rarely seen and somewhat formidable distances just a few weeks apart.Think about it for a moment. What is the same about the Triple Crown since Affirmed and Seattle Slew accomplished the longshot back-to-back crowns in 1977 and 1978? Again, consider the base elements: the tracks, the distances and the calendar are the same. Everything else is different. The horses, the people, the environment, the air, the water, the track surfaces, the stress levels, the medications, the pedigrees, the economy – all different, and none of these important factors seem to be moving us closer to finding a horse that can win at 10 furlongs and 12 furlongs five weeks apart.
And on that not-so-positive note, here’s the other “ridiculous” notion about the Triple Crown – the notion that a Triple Crown winner would save, or even dramatically improve, Thoroughbred racing.The key to this concept is “generating meaningful long-term benefit,” with the key words being meaningful and long-term. Would a Triple Crown winner create great buzz for the sport and an uptick in popularity and interest? Of course it would.
But would those benefits hold up long-term? History says probably not.
Back to the World Cup. Remember when the U.S. women’s team won the World Cup back in 1999? It was the most-attended women's sports event in history with an official attendance of 90,185 at the Rose Bowl. The dramatic U.S. win peaked an interest in soccer (and specifically women’s soccer) for a short period of time.
How long you ask? For as long as the known stars of that team (Brandy Chastain, Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy, Brianna Scurry) were making news, folks stayed interested. Once they retired, interest in women’s soccer, soccer in general and the biggest single sporting event in the world – the World Cup – waned here in the U.S.
In this decade with modern culture featuring a number of characteristics not typically beneficial to racing (including a short attention span), the same pattern would likely have happened in horse racing had War Emblem, Funny Cide, Smarty Jones or Big Brown won all three three-year-old spring classics.
The moral of this ridiculous tale is that meaningful change comes from the inside, not the outside. If we want horseracing’s lot to improve, we need to take long hard looks at every component of the game no matter how sacred. Whether it’s the Triple Crown or year-around racing, change is needed.Our job is to control whether the inevitable changes are good, bad or…ridiculous… -- Glenn Petty
11 comments:
The Triple Crown isn't ridiculous. The emphasis on it is. How many people know that Rachel Alexander and Zenyetta are both running this weekend?
Yes, let's eliminate every race over 5 furlongs because American trainers can't (and don't know how to) train a horse for any distance over 5 without a moving van full of drugs. The breed isn't weaker, but the brainlessness at the training level is. Rest your horse for weeks and hope the genetics get you a win. Brilliant! Meanwhile, European and Australian horses would eat their unprepared asses if Americans had the balls to run their pukey ponies in European classics or venture to Australia.
It's the age of the international horse, but not in America. Meanwhile how about that claiming race for 5k going 5 furlongs at Aqueduct in the middle of January?
Something has to change, what we have now is not working. To me the real problem lies w/ Churchill, MID and NYRA as they give the impression that things are fine and change would be sinful.
Every other sport that is achieving success today has tweaked one thing or another. It is time to work together and start the tweaking.
Perhaps it's the rest of the industry that has gotten ridiculous, not the Triple Crown.
Not as ridiculous as the Stanley Cup played in the summer and the World Series played in the winter and year round basketball playoffs.
I don't agree with the comment above that blames the focus of sprint racing on bad horsemanship. It's probably a factor, but the bigger problem is 30 years of breeding the same bloodlines to one another and producing speed, speed and more speed. VA breeder Wayne Chatfield-Taylor has a book of photographs of TB stallions taken in the early 1900s. The racehorses we produce today don't luck much like them in terms of bone and substance. After World War II, the U.S. breeding industry got an influx of stamina, speed and substance from Europe. We need that again (from somewhere), but our super-efficient commericial market won't tolerate that well...
This argument is well stated. However, We would have had some Triple Crown winners since Affirmed if the competition pool was only 5,000 or 10,000 horses as in years past.
I think the 20 horse Derby field should be run on a straightaway - but impractical.
About 34 years ago Canonero won the Derby over 19 other horses, then won the Preaknewss. Like Funnycide he placed third I think in the Belmont. Foal crops are so large now there will always be more fresh horses that can be prepped for one peak performance in the Derby or Belmont.
Secretariat ran 12 times at age 2. Buckpasser's half brother Bupers ran 18 times at 2 and 33 times at 3 with a bad back to boot. But then the four start wonders like Mr. Prospector began to dominate the gene pool.
More recently I note Gemma's Star ran 22 times at 2 and came back to win 3 of 6 at three, including two Calder Stakes.
Early racing may be bad for most of the modern fragile horse, but how come some could do it?
Good points, although I'd change the title! I agree with those thinking lack of a TC has nothing at all to do with breeding and everything to do with our trainer system, as it has evolved. We are permitting a group (of trainers) who have nothing invested except that they are making a living, to control the sport. They get the stalls, they fill the races, they dominate their owners. They ruin the sport by injuring almost every horse they get a hold of by their stupidity and negligence. Consider how War Pass was handled by that Used Car Salesman that calls himself a trainer. #1 racing needs to figure a system that will have someone besides what we have to control the racing end of the sports. Trainers should be employees instead of those calling the shots. Stalls should be allocated to owners, and trainers stalls should be limited.
The Triple Crown concept is not ridiculous, but the way racing now operates is making a total joke out of it.
I agree with this article that bad breeding and an obsession with speed has made (or is making) the long-distance thoroughbred extinct. There have been too many horses bred for speed and for shorter distances. There have also been too many horses who have become 'champions' or won major purses because of good drugs instead of good training. These horses often end up in the breeding shed after they retire.
The end results of this are polluted bloodlines. Thousands of foals leading to thousands of foals who are not bred to go long or are unsound to begin with. Trainers like Zito and Lukas have even remarked that the 2-year-olds being given to them just don't look right physically.
Here is my humble view on what will happen. The Triple Crown will keep its current format, because old habits die hard (this is one IMO that shouldn't). Somewhere along the line, a better-bred, better-conditioned horse from Europe, Asia, some other part of the world will show up and win all three races. No idea when that will be. It's pretty clear, though, that the breeding industry in North America is going downhill fast.
The emphasis on speed is a large part of declining state of thoroughbred racing in this country. Sprints, in my opinion, are much less interesting from both an aesthetic view and a wagering one. But the reason is really very simple. Money. The average racehorse makes maybe 60% of their costs back in earnings. And that's the average, which includes all the big winners. So, out of necessity, owners have to try to have their horses win purses as early as possible (ie. as 2yr olds). And the most successful 2yr olds will be those that develop early and are born sprinters (since 2yr olds are not ready to go farther than 5f or 6f; especially in the spring and summer). So, the owners want precocious 2yr olds and that's what sells at the sales. Thus, that's what breeders breed. And then, these speed-oriented horses cannot handle longer distances even when they get older so the racetracks card mostly sprint races (since the distance races don't fill). A vicious spiral. (Add in to that that successful sires are made in their 1st crop of 2yr olds. Sires that don't produce in their 1st year are downgraded and minimized.) The only solution is to make it better financially for owners to buy and race late-developing distance horses. Right now, the Triple Crown is probably the only thing prevent thoroughbred racing from slowly becoming quarter horse racing.
The three races referred to as the "Triple Crown" are simply three races for 3 year olds held at 3 different tracks at three different times. They have no other relationship, except in the minds of a media obsessed with spectacle and a certain kind of racing fan. If there's never another triple crown winner, it won't have a negative effect on any of our lives. Never the less, horse racing has major issues, competition for the gambling dollar with speedy but inane lotteries and mechanical devices, dying media coverage and a literally dying fan base, and too many races at too many tracks with too few horses are just the beginning.
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