Coming off his Breeders’ Cup classic victory, Authentic has retired to Spendthrift Farm in Kentucky, where he will stand for $75,000. The three year old raced only eight times, but earned an impressive $6,191,200. In addition to the Breeders’ Cup Classic the colt won the Kentucky Derby, the G1 Haskell, G2 San Felipe and G3 Sham. He was second in the Preakness and the Santa Anita Derby.
It seems that very few stallions continue to race past their three-year old season if they perform well — I suppose it’s too risky to keep them racing and expose them to the potential of injury. Look at Honor AP, who strained a tendon in the Kentucky Derby, and was retired to stud because it would “take too long” to bring him back to racing. I thought he was the most magnificent of the three-year olds this year and am sorry we won’t see him run again.
In the upper echelons of horse racing, there are very few “War Horses” any more, like Seabiscuit who raced 89 times! It does make you wonder about the durability of the thoroughbreds running today.
We’ll just have to look at the fillies — Swiss Skydiver is destined to run in 2021, with Gamine another probable. I guess for the mares, racing another season just means one less foal on the ground; for the colts, there’s a lot more money in play.
It IS a shame that colts are retired so early. So many retire to stud and don’t really make much of an impact. Yet if they’re a gelding? They race and race and race. In the Breeder’s Cup, one of the races, can’t remember which one, a 7 year old ran. I pinned my hopes on him, solely because he was an old campaigner. You like to see them beat the ‘kids’. sorry to say, he ended up out of the money.
Yet…I just read the book “Out of the Clouds”, about Stymie. If you’ve not read it yet, I’m going to be harsh here, ..don’t bother. You don’t even get to the horse being foaled until half way through the book. It’s more about the people and their goal of making the most money ever with one horse. They ran that horse more for the prestige of being the first one to win so many dollars, then again, then again, ever more greed for that extra $. they even ‘retired’ him, then pulled him out of his well earned pasture to race again at 9..and he said, no, I’m done.
As for durability? Nope. In my opinion, once the breeders decided that it was speed, speed, speed to the detriment of everything else, the TB became a hothouse flower, too delicate, too easily broken down, too many things. Their hooves, their skin, oh, I love the TB but won’t ever own or lease a purebred again. They’re just too delicate. Not that I’m crazy about quarter horses, but they can take a lot more ””abuse”’ (if you know what I mean) than a TB.
I am encouraged, though, by some folks who are breeding TB’s for something other than racing. Hopefully, they avoid the ‘successful’ bloodlines. MANY years ago when I lived in Texas, I was at a polo barn to massage two polo “ponies”. If you hadn’t known any better you’d never know they were TB’s. They were, and they were tough, scrappy horses that could take a scrimmage and not be all torn up.
In a way, racing TB’s are like greyhounds. A friend of mine has three. She says they’re great dogs, but they have issues. They are so thin skinned that a mishap that would leave a mutt with barely a scratch will put a greyhound in the vet clinic for days, trying to heal it up.