Comparing my assessment of Shakespeare 12 months ago to what has transpired with his runners since, I feel psychological bruising on a par with having spent $1,000,000 on a yearling who couldn't run. Shakespeare seemed like my secret discovery everyone else would soon get wind off. At Saratoga and Woodbin in 2011, a succession of them won in fine style. The ones who didn't win gave good accounts of themselves, and seemed to win next time. But this year....there's been nothing. As infallibly talented as the Shakespeares seemed, they've been that unsound. As Shakespeare retired at the end of his 6-year-old year with just eight career starts on his ledger, perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised. But I just don't see how they can all be this unsound. Live and learn, I guess.
I did some work once that established that runners/starters was a very consistent, very reliable, very real stat. The problem was that it didn't have much to do with anything else important. Getting horses who make it to the races doesn't mean that a sire sired good horses. At all.
The Shakespeare cautionary tale again brings this into question. With enough stallions like him, the relationship between soundness and stakes performance should emerge, just because unsound horses eliminate themselves from stakes contention. The rest of the thoroughbred population inevitably benefits. Eighty percent of being a stakes winner certainly isn't about showing up, to take the Woody Allen percentage, but it sure seems like it must be 15%.
No comments:
Post a Comment