Midshipman beached

Those who have tickets on Number 11 in the first Derby Future Pool are throwing them away already. Midshipman will not run. His injury isn't life threatening, or even career threatening. He may come back in the Fall.

I last posted on how modern trainers; led by the minds of more anonymous but great trainers such as John McCord, but also by some of the more famous ones, such as Nafzger, Zito, McGaughey, and Mott; don't push their horses too much. Now, Midshipman wasn't pushed as hard as some, but he did start racing in August, and ran hard in 4 races in just over a 2 month span, including 2 Grade 1 wins, notably the big one in November.

So many injuries can happen. When I was a horseman, it wasn't unusual for a spirited horse to hurt his foot just kicking the stall. The grueling campaign of just 4 races may not seem like much, but when you're talking about 4 hard races for a 2 year old, including 2 Grade 1 wins, that just takes a lot.

And don't listen to the fools who say he won those races easily. There is no such thing as winning easily. He trained hard and ran hard, and even harder to make it look easy.

This is to show that the best path to the Derby and other stakes for older horses, is the patient, modern road. Sure, forty years ago the Derby runners had long campaigns, but they were running against the same types. All of the trainers would race often. In those days, a horse could win the Derby off of 12-20 lifetime starts, because every other 3 year old considered for the Derby also had a lot of starts.

A good way to keep trainers from rushing the two year olds is to make purses larger for older horses, and much much smaller for 2 years olds. In fact, I would propose no graded stakes for 2 year olds until October. And no purses over $25,000 until August for 2 year olds. And no purses over $50,000 until October for 2 year olds.

This seems extreme ONLY to those who don't care about the welfare of a horse, and lets face it, the welfare of the jockey who could easily lose months of income off a broken wrist or ankle when his mount breaks down. It should be enforced on a national level, unless you don't give one whit about safety. I think all but the absolute psychos can agree on at least this much responsibility, and most people would want more safety measures.