Belmont Stakes

[zekko]

I don't know the first thing about horse racing. But I remember seeing three Triple Crown winners back in the 70s (Secretariat, Citation, and Affirmed). Why hasn't there been one since? Is it simply that the competition has become a lot tougher?

 

[Tictac]

Belmont is a very long track. Horses that can win all three races are exceedingly rare.

 

[backbreaker]

I don't know the first thing about horse racing. But I remember seeing three Triple Crown winners back in the 70s (Secretariat, Citation, and Affirmed). Why hasn't there been one since? Is it simply that the competition has become a lot tougher?

It's a quite complicated answer. The easy answer is that frankly our trainers suck ass and can't train a horse to win the triple crown.


1. all three of those horses you named were what are called home breds. Meaning, I owned a female horse, I decided who I wanted to bred the horse to, I raised the baby and I let him race. There are vast advantages to having a home bred race horse in that you can control his upbringing, what he is fed, how he is managed, you can control a lot of things in these first year / 2 years of his life that will effect the type of race horse he will be


most horses now are bought at sales. Horses that are sold at sales are well, bred to look good and sale good but not necessiarly to run.


perfect example the horse that came in 2nd place today in the belmont is by a sire named Dynaformer. same sire as Barbaro (home bred), Dynaformer is an EXCELLENT source of stamina. if you want your horse to run long it's good to have Dynaformer in the pedigree his horses will run all day long.

but people who buy horses at sales are more concerned about getting a quick ROI on the money they just spent so they dont' want to wait for a year or 2 before a horse fully matures they want their money now so horses that run long = slow and are devauled so they don't get bred. what you get are horses that are bred to run short distances because they can hit the track now and make money now.


that's a really big problem. We aren't breeding horses that want to run 12F. **** we aren't breeding horses that want to run 10F lol.


2. the trainers are all from the lukas / baffert racing tree and they use quarterhorse training methods that are not condusive to training a horse to run 3 times in 5 days

I follow / bet on australian racing a lot and it's nothing for a horse to run 2 times a week. happens quite often even at the highest of levels. Makyabe diva the filly who won 20 something races in a row i saw her race 4 or 5 times in about a month span and coast in all of them.

we here have to have a month between our races. these horses have no foundation.


3. there were really, 4 horses who I think were good enough and should ahve won the triple rown

Afleet Alex
Spectacular Bid
Alaysheba
Sunday Silence


Afleet Alex- jockey screwed up in the derby and got stuck in traffic, but cleaned up in the preakness and belmont

Spectacular Bid - the horse got a safety pin stuck in his foot the morning of his race

Alashyeba - the jockey lost the race

Sunday Silence - faced easy goer who was just as talented and easy goer just beat him. it happens.



California Chrome IMHO was good enough as well but he didn't have the foundation , nor the jockey to win. the jockey should have taken the lead and made them get him and the horse was spent.



we'll see one. but honestly it would probably be a non us hosre. I have no hope in US horses winning the triple crown.

 

[backbreaker]

my son is really really down about the race. he loves him some California chrome. first race horse he is old enough to follow

he's asking me a bunch of horse racing questions so i'm gonna make a night of it and pop out the horse racing documentations and watch them with him and the wife. gonna be fun.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

Winning a Triple Crown is like throwing a perfect game in baseball. It's an aspect of statistics more than anything else.

It happens very rarely, for a bunch of obvious reasons.

Baseball Perfect Games: (135 years): 23

Triple Crown Winners: (first in 1919): 11

A similar feat in football might be superbowl champs with a lossless season, etc, Not too many sports have a metric such as this.

 

[zekko]

We aren't breeding horses that want to run 12F. **** we aren't breeding horses that want to run 10F lol.

Thanks for the explanation, BB, that makes a lot of sense.

I see California Chrome's owner was complaining that there were fresh horses in the Belmont who didn't run the other legs of the triple crown. I wonder if that was happening back in the 70s also. As I said, as rare as they may be, I saw three triple crown winners while I was in my teens. There were three in a six year stretch.

 

[backbreaker]

yes it was. the rules have not changed in fact we've made it EASIER to win the triple crown and horses still can't do it

Wirlaway won the triple crown when the derby and the preakness were 1 week apart and he ran in 2 races the week before the derby. citation won the triple crown while winning hte derby, the preakness hte next week, the next week going to win an additional race, then went to belmont and won the belmont stakes.


it's not harder it's easier and the horses can't do it. what does that tell you.

 

[Fatal Jay]

Interesting stuff, I figure when I become a millionaire I will invest in two race horses.

 

[backbreaker]

why wait? the guy who bought california chrome bought his mom for 8 thousand dollars and bred her for 3 thousand. he spent 11 grand total plus probbrlay another 10-15k for upkeep. he's turned that into what... 3 and a half million dollars plus the money he's going to get from more racing plus the money he's going to get from stud fees plus the money he's going to get for selling cali chromes 2 full sisters

they probably make about 15 million dollars off this horse when it's all said and done


sad backbreaker lol