No One Died in the Preakness Stakes!

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Kent Desmoreaux rides Big Brown across the finish line at the 2008 Preakness Stakes today. The horse's ears are pricked forward, indicating that he is running easily.

Image: Jonathan Ernst (Reuters).

Odds-on favorite and Kentucky Derby winner, Big Brown, won the Preakness Stakes today by 5 1/4 lengths. This victory makes him 2/3rds of the way to winning horse racing's Triple Crown. But Big Brown's win isn't really news, if you ask me, since he is the only talented living 3-year-old racehorse in America this year, so of course he should win this race. However, what IS news is the none of the racehorses competing in the Preakness Stakes were injured or died. Whew.

Even though he slipped coming out of the starting gate, Big Brown recovered his stride and easily won the 1 3/16 mile race in an unimpressive time of 1 minute, 54.8 seconds (the record of 1:53.4 is shared by three horses; Curlin in 2007, Louis Quatorze in 1996 and Tank's Prospect in 1985). Unfortunately, even though all Big Brown's margins of victory have been impressive, none of his race times have been. Thus, it appears that Big Brown's true abilities will remain unknown since it is unlikely that he will ever be truly tested.

In fact, the hedge fund, International Equine Acquisitions Holdings, Inc., knows that Big Brown is too valuable to race any longer than necessary since they sold him hours before the gates of the Preakness Stakes flew open, to a syndicate for an as-yet undisclosed sum (but is more than $50 million, according to NBC). Big Brown will be retired to stud at the end of this racing season. The horse will stand at stud at Three Chimneys Farm in Midway, Kentucky, in time for the 2009 breeding season.

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Here is a question that occurred to me upon reading your entry. Because of breeding practices, thoroughbred racing horses must have a relatively small gene pool relative to other horses. That being the case, is there still any advantage in an owner breeding his/her mare with the top stud horses? Wouldn't the odds of ending up with a talented racing horse be the same, even if the father was some relatively unknown, reasonably good race horse?

In hard truth, Thoroughbred breeding is a crap shoot. It's why they talk about "catching lightning in a bottle". Most of the mares are totally untested, and as you say the gene pool is very limited. Handicapping prevents genuine testing of older horses, and young ones' performances are not a good indicator of the underlying reality - especially the strength or stamina...