The never-ending horse thread
I was thinking of a scenario where the owner of a longshot places a massive bet on his horse to show. The favorite is scratched, and the few horses don't allow show betting. His horse wins, but his bets get refunded.
Quote: billryanI meant the Belmont as he'd already crushed the first two legs of the Triple Crown.
I was thinking of a scenario where the owner of a longshot places a massive bet on his horse to show. The favorite is scratched, and the few horses don't allow show betting. His horse wins, but his bets get refunded.
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It looks like, in New York, if there are four horses, the track has the option to allow show betting or not.
Click on that link for a 16 page betting guide.
Good Luck
https://promos.drf.com/freepps#:~:text=Players%20will%20earn%201%20Past,yet%20a%20DRF%20Bets%20member%3F
It has a ‘Triple Crown’. Which a horse is eligible to compete for ONCE. As a 3 year old.
Sovereignty won the Derby. Now of course the only horse with a chance to win the Triple Crown. Except of course his owners are not racing him in the Preakness. You know, the horse that trains every day, with the best feed, the best veterinarians, the best trainers, the best jockeys,…. can’t be ready to run for two minutes after having a 14 day break after running fast for two minutes.
Apparently from 1997-2018 there were zero Derby winners who didn’t try for the Triple Crown. This reminds me of ‘load management’ in the NBA. Just leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
Quote: SOOPOOWhy horse racing is truly an afterthought….
It has a ‘Triple Crown’. Which a horse is eligible to compete for ONCE. As a 3 year old.
Sovereignty won the Derby. Now of course the only horse with a chance to win the Triple Crown. Except of course his owners are not racing him in the Preakness. You know, the horse that trains every day, with the best feed, the best veterinarians, the best trainers, the best jockeys,…. can’t be ready to run for two minutes after having a 14 day break after running fast for two minutes.
Apparently from 1997-2018 there were zero Derby winners who didn’t try for the Triple Crown. This reminds me of ‘load management’ in the NBA. Just leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
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I say retire the horse and put it out to stud as the Derby winner. If it races again and doesn't perform well its stock will go down.
Quote: DRichQuote: SOOPOOWhy horse racing is truly an afterthought….
It has a ‘Triple Crown’. Which a horse is eligible to compete for ONCE. As a 3 year old.
Sovereignty won the Derby. Now of course the only horse with a chance to win the Triple Crown. Except of course his owners are not racing him in the Preakness. You know, the horse that trains every day, with the best feed, the best veterinarians, the best trainers, the best jockeys,…. can’t be ready to run for two minutes after having a 14 day break after running fast for two minutes.
Apparently from 1997-2018 there were zero Derby winners who didn’t try for the Triple Crown. This reminds me of ‘load management’ in the NBA. Just leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
link to original post
I say retire the horse and put it out to stud as the Derby winner. If it races again and doesn't perform well its stock will go down.
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I'd sell three-quarters of the horse now and sit back.
Quote: SOOPOOWhy horse racing is truly an afterthought….
It has a ‘Triple Crown’. Which a horse is eligible to compete for ONCE. As a 3 year old.
Sovereignty won the Derby. Now of course the only horse with a chance to win the Triple Crown. Except of course his owners are not racing him in the Preakness. You know, the horse that trains every day, with the best feed, the best veterinarians, the best trainers, the best jockeys,…. can’t be ready to run for two minutes after having a 14 day break after running fast for two minutes.
Apparently from 1997-2018 there were zero Derby winners who didn’t try for the Triple Crown. This reminds me of ‘load management’ in the NBA. Just leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
link to original post
One thing I wonder: if the Belmont was scheduled for 1 1/2 miles at Belmont Park and not 1 1/4 miles at Saratoga, would the decision have been different? A Triple Crown this year would have been more like a Triple Coronet; it's just not the same thing without the "Test of the Champion."
Quote: ThatDonGuyQuote: SOOPOOWhy horse racing is truly an afterthought….
It has a ‘Triple Crown’. Which a horse is eligible to compete for ONCE. As a 3 year old.
Sovereignty won the Derby. Now of course the only horse with a chance to win the Triple Crown. Except of course his owners are not racing him in the Preakness. You know, the horse that trains every day, with the best feed, the best veterinarians, the best trainers, the best jockeys,…. can’t be ready to run for two minutes after having a 14 day break after running fast for two minutes.
Apparently from 1997-2018 there were zero Derby winners who didn’t try for the Triple Crown. This reminds me of ‘load management’ in the NBA. Just leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
link to original post
One thing I wonder: if the Belmont was scheduled for 1 1/2 miles at Belmont Park and not 1 1/4 miles at Saratoga, would the decision have been different? A Triple Crown this year would have been more like a Triple Coronet; it's just not the same thing without the "Test of the Champion."
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Doubt it would make a difference in their myopic thinking. The Triple Crown is the only thing the casual sports fan will give two hoots about. How much lower will the TV ratings be for the Preakness without the Derby winner? How much lower will the betting handle be?
Humans run 2 minutes in an 800 yard race, qualify for the finals, then run the same race two days later. These horse races are two minutes. I can’t believe the horses can’t be ready two weeks later.
Quote: SOOPOODoubt it would make a difference in their myopic thinking. The Triple Crown is the only thing the casual sports fan will give two hoots about. How much lower will the TV ratings be for the Preakness without the Derby winner? How much lower will the betting handle be?
Humans run 2 minutes in an 800 yard race, qualify for the finals, then run the same race two days later. These horse races are two minutes. I can’t believe the horses can’t be ready two weeks later.
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Horse racing has had this conversation before. In 1985, Derby winner Spend A Buck skipped the Preakness and the Belmont to try (successfully) to earn a $2 million bonus at the Jersey Derby. I am under the impression that this played a major part in the creation of the Triple Crown Challenge, which started as a $5 million bonus to any horse that could win the Triple Crown.
I have a feeling that any talk of moving the date of the Preakness will turn into talk of moving the location from Pimlico as well. We'll see how well that works next year, as the race is scheduled to be at Laurel Park while Pimlico is finishing its renovations.
Quote: SOOPOO
Humans run 2 minutes in an 800 yard race, qualify for the finals, then run the same race two days later.
it's not meaningful to compare horses to humans
human runners probably weigh an average of about 170 pounds
racehorses average about 1,100 pounds
and they run on very skinny legs
"the trainers of Derby horses that do run in the Preakness do it out of a sense of tradition - not because they like it" - said Trainer Bill Mott
"The debate has been raging for decades about horses not being able to handle the grind of three premier races over a span of five weeks. That was primarily because no one swept the Triple Crown between Affirmed in 1978 and American Pharoah in 2015, a 37-year drought that made industry stakeholders question tradition versus modern-day changes."
https://spectrumlocalnews.com/mo/kansas-city/ap-top-news/2025/05/07/no-kentucky-derby-winner-sovereignty-in-preakness-highlights-some-philosophical-horse-racing-changes
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The Triple Crown was created in 1950 and retroactively awarded to horses that fit the criteria. Before 1950, not every Derby winner competed in the next two legs, because they were not part of any organized trilogy.
From 1950 on, several horses had a chance to sweep after winning the first two races and didn't before Secretariat and then there were three in the next five years. There was talk of changing the races as suddenly it seemed too easy. A thirty-year gap, with numerous horses winning the first two but failing in the third, and Chase offering five million for a TC winner, added to the anticipation.
