As many breeders change their strategies to appeal to the sales market, it should follow that this would put the traditional breeders at an advantage. The farms that keep their stock for racing, and still breed for soundness rather than speed, should be able to win big races while the fragile, speed types fall by the wayside. However, this is not the case. Two of the reasons are track surfaces and medications.

Within the last 20 years, there has been a major change in the way racetracks manage their racing surfaces. In the mid-80s tracks, in general, were deep, safe, and slower. But now, in order to draw the high-priced, speed-slanted three-year-olds, track managements will accommodate them by making their surfaces as fast as possible. Two examples that come to mind from this year's Triple Crown prep races are Bellamy Road's (Concerto) wire-to-wire victory in the Wood Memorial (G1), where he earned a 115 BRIS figure, and High Limit's (Maria's Mon) front-running domination of the Louisiana Derby (G2).

hi jerry, this was on bris tonight, you always say secreteriat would be a slow horse today, maybe he and forego would have kicked ass on today's surfaces and gotten negative numbers?