zekko said:
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.
lol