Re: Picked Alysheba (662 Views)
Posted by:
Phalaris (IP Logged)
Date: December 08, 2003 01:54PM
The backing up of major Derby preps went on in the 1980s and 1990s. Without my classic PPs on hand (I have them all back to the late 1940s, but not at the office), I recall that it was about 1990, give or take a few years, that the Blue Grass, Wood Memorial and Arkansas Derby retreated to their present place on the calendar.
Since the early 1970s, there has been a reduction in the number of pre-Derby 3YO starts, a significant increase in the elapsed time between the final Derby prep and the Derby, and a decrease in the likelihood that higher-repute 3YOs take part in races at a mile or less. As late as the 1970s, a horse won the Derby with a 7f prep a week before the race, a strategy that had produced a fair share of Derby winners in years before but which would seem unthinkable now.