"An alarming epidemic of infertility swept the ranks of top horses...Drugs may have been the culprit..top stables engaged in doping. Rumor had it that...was a pharmacological master, though this was never proven, and he was eventually inducted with honor into the racing hall of fame."

Does this sound like something that might have come from a recent editorial to the Bloodhorse?

It is actually part of a description of racing during the 1920's contained in the very interesting book "Racing Through The Century" by Mary Simon.

Following are a few other snippets regarding yesteryear that could easily be applied to today.

"Affluent tracks began to compete aggressively for big-name runners and did so by offering enormous purses and lenient weight assignments. Thus, if a trainer felt his horse was unfairly weighted for a race, he could easily seek competition elsewhere."

"Critics argued that two-year-old racing was becoming an unhealthy obsession within the sport. They worried that an increased emphasis on speed and precocity would change the way we breed our horses and eventually drain American bloodlines of their stamina and soundness."

"When so many of a country's leading performers give way so early, there are grounds for suspicion that something may be wrong with our racing and breeding program."

Interesting words about/from the 1920's 1930's and 1940s.

The big question is - did the racing industry learn anything from the last century?

Cheers.

Chris