In light of Barbaro's injury, I would say it's time that horse racing make a serious change. I have heard two solutions to the problem that has been plauging racing. Which is the American thoroughbred has been bred to go faster and faster and has left the stamina and durability behind. There are two conceivable solutions to the problem. I will lay them both out on the table and we can discuss, but please lets keep it civilized no arguements. The first is a more of a short term change, to the Triple Crown schedule from 5 weeks to 9 weeks. Moving the Preakness to the first Saturday in June and pushing the Belmont back to July 4th, to make it less grueling for the modern thoroughbred the sport would benefit from the extra promotion in extending the series, and it would also increase the competion level, there would be more horse sticking around for the whole series, it would also give late season foals a chance to mature and catch up to the rest of the group. Many of the detractors of this say that it would take away the accomplishments of the first eleven Triple Crown winners. I have an opinion on that. It wouldn't put into question the first eleven Triple Crown winner, if the schedule was changed and a horse did win the Triple Crown it would put into question the validity of that horse. In my mind horse racing relies on the Triple Crown right now to bring in potential fans, it should not revolve around it.
The second solution to the same problem is to make a serious change in America's breeding more soundness and more stamina. Here's my take. I have brought this issue up many times before Barbaro's injury, with people in the industry, they really didn't seem to budge on the issue, they have to do something now. This problem started in the 80's when buyers from Europe and Japan bought our blue blooded stock. It made the greedy bloodstock agents rich, but severley depleted the gene pool. As yearling prices increased, and sales became a much bigger money game than racing, stud farms began to breed for looks and speed, not stamina and durability. Nowadays 2 year old sales pay big bucks for horses that run extremely fast furlongs in 12 seconds, as immature young horses there bones are not set right. As a result of this horses now run faster, but not farther race less, but sometimes train very hard. The thing in horse racing now is to breed or buy a horse, that at 2 years old that can outrun it's physical limitations, earn millions of dollars, contest a classic or two and then retire to the breeding shed and repeat the process again. Thoroughbreds back in the day used to carry weights that would be unthinkable today. Kelso carried 130 pounds to victory in the 1961 Met Mile if lets say Nick Zito were to do that today he would be ending a horses career. Thoroughbreds used to contest distances that would test a horses stamina to the fullest. Today the 1 1/2 mile Belmont distance is considered rare. It was also not uncommon to see a horse even superstar's race every week, sometimes twice week. Today if we see a horse race more than once a month it's a miracle.
Many have looked toward a third possible solution, and that is changing the racing surface the recent thing is Polytrack is said to be the saviour of the sport. It seems the only thing not subject to change for the better is the horse. Consider Smarty Jones, who captured the hearts of thousands of racing fans when he attempted the Belmont as a Triple Crown winner. Not to long after his faliure he was retired due to injury. Ghostzapper, who I thought was the best horse in the past 10 years and probably the only modern horse that could have raced well against the likes of Seattle Slew and Affirmed, he was one of the fastest to ever set a hoof on the track yet his sporadic racing schedule was still not enough to prevent injury and he was retired. Smarty Jones, Afleet Alex, Point Given are now producing offspring that will inherit their sires fragility. The same applies for the hundreds or however many horses that have been retired in the past two decades. Hopefuly the positives that can be taken from Barbaro's injury, are that it will force people to look at the need of a serious change in racing. The greatest thing for racing would be a return to the glory days of racing in the 30's and 40's when racing was one of the big three sports in America. When the superstars would race every week or two and fans come out in droves to see them. Unfortanetly it will probably never get back to that point, today horses do not stay around long enough for potential fans to latch onto. When the stars are retired early the casual fans feel cheated, and refuse to invest the same amount of energy and heart when another star comes along becuase they know that it won't last. Horse racing does not need to have more gambling options and slot machines at the tracks, no offense to John The Gambler and his hardcore gambling buddies. In America gambling is looked on as a disease and betting being mainly associated with horse racing gives it an unfair bad rapp. Racing needs to figure this out, and turn around the sport of kings. Failure to address the obvious issues will be the further downfall of Horse Racing in the Unites States. Surmon over.
