Miff:

Beyer gave BR 120 for the Wood, so TGJB wasn't the only one who tossed anchor figure wise.

Its true. Sometimes the popular question should be phrased "Are figure makers making horses faster than they were years ago?"

And its not just the stake horses. I would be interested to know how many horses broke their maiden with a TG# of 5 or less or a Beyer over 90 (use your own #s, you get my point) in 2004- 2005; check the same #s for the years 2002- 2003. When we have our exchanges on this board we talk about Dr Fager and Smarty Jones hooking up, horses at the top level, but are even MAIDENS getting faster? Noticeably so?

The problem for racing big picture wise is that the inflated figures (of course not ALL of them are inflated) inflate the value of potential stallions. I have my stallion register out, and Halo's Image's page mentions his Beyer #s, not his final times; Albert the Great's page mentions that he ran triple digit Beyers 15 times (no mention of any final times).

The big #s are being used by the farms to market these stallions. The farm owners who will try to buy BR for stud have their ad all made up for them...." Breed to the world's fastest three year old". The big #s, TG, Beyer or Rags, almost assure that the slightest infirmity will result in BR's retirement.


Class, I say this without animus. When you START a post (to paraphrase) "Why are you all debating something that is very obvious to me", you're going to tick some folks off.