re: Preakness Talk

THAT was a killer race. Love the bumping.

quote:

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why does most of the top horses skip the Belmont and/or Preakness?

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The reason I repeatedly see/hear has to do with the health of the horse and whether the horse is fatigued and prone to injury by running three races in roughly six (6) weeks. The trainers seem to assess the hose 48-72 hours after each race and based upon their observations makes a recommendation as to whether the horse is good to go for the next leg of the triple crown.

The derby is middle distance 1/12 and the Preakness is akin to a sprint 1.16 miles while the Belmont is a marathon at 1 3/4 miles. The distances might seem insignificant if you think of humans, but with horses racing at speeds of 40+ mph it’s a big difference. Not many horses can excel in all three, hence why a triple crown win is rare.
If a trainer knows his horse can’t run x speed at x length, he won’t enter him in that race.

Derby is 1-1/4
Preakness is 1-3/16
Belmont is 1-1/4 (normally 1-1/2)

No, Belmont is 1 3/4.

I'd like to see them space the races out by a few weeks to give the horses more time to recover.

Hell of a run by Journalism yesterday. You can tell that horse just wants to win. Damn fine honorable mention for Sandman. This horse was dead last at the halfway point.

My bad, and I forgot about Saratoga.

that preakness field was bad, majority of the pimloco races were really, really bad. bobby flay won the 3 year old undercard race with a horse who just won his 1st NW1 allowance race. I had him, he looked like he would improve, but rest of field was mediocre.