Letter to the Editor: Eric Ward

I always enjoy whatever Chris McGrath writes, particularly his way of getting at things that many do not want to address.

In Saturday's TDN he touched on a subject close to my heart (This Side Up, Nov. 15 TDN), so much so that I would venture to distil an answer to his question of why modern horsemen are so much more reluctant to ask questions of the Thoroughbred than their predecessors, down to the following:

Because in the modern “Thoroughbred Industry” the tail of stud value now wags the dog of racing spectacle. Or as Todd Pletcher put it (in Bill Finley's excellent 2010 paper, “Do We Need a Sturdier Racehorse?”) everything comes down to economics.

Racehorses are too valuable to race. A phenomenon the doyen of British racing scribes, Tony Morris, first predicted in an article about Shareef Dancer's brief career. I'm showing my age now!

We tend to justify (no pun intended) brief racing careers and cash-in retirements by saying the horse “had nothing left to prove.” Except perhaps competing in more races, generating racing spectacle for connections and fans alike and perhaps even becoming a draw for the general public.

And, drug scandals aside, we wonder why racing is declining in popularity.

–Eric Ward