Barbaro, a potential superstar thoroughbred, has joined the club of broken down potential champions. For the past 10 years or so, quality thoroughbred horses have been breaking down at an alarming rate. The breed has obviously changed. The horse's legs are not as strong or thick as they used to be. This is most likely caused by in-breeding and in-breeding for speed. The idea is to breed a horse that works out fast as a 2 year old in traininig, because they can be sold for a nice sum of money. No one seems to care if the horse has any class or endurance anymore, even though the crown jewel is the 10 furlong Kentucky Derby. Horses like Smarty Jones, Funny Cide and War Emblem, all recent Derby winners, were actually not bred well for a 10 furlong race. They were bred for speed and should've been best up to about a mile or perhaps a little longer. The fact that these speed-bred horses won is not a good sign for the sport. It will only make breeders even more short sighted than they already are. In each of those Derbys, several 3 year olds broke down before the Derby. Consequently, horses that weren't well bred for the distance were able to beat watered down competition. Smarty Jones was a nice horse, but he was not a great horse. What did he beat?

There could be other factors contributing to the physical problems of the modern day thoroughbred. Perhaps drugs and steroids are hurting the breed as well, it's hard to tell. My guess is that in-breeding is the main cause. Everyone knows that when you constantly in-breed, you can get the best and the worst. If you take two cousins that are physically beautiful and strong and breed them, you will probably get a beautiful looking result. But will it be healthy?

The ironic thing is that no one in the thoroughbred industry seems to be giving this problem the attention it deserves. There hasn't be a bonafide star in the sport in 10 years. The last great thoroughbred was Cigar. Since Cigar, there have been horses that appeared destined for greatness, but they all either broke down or were retired early to breed.

Everyone who is seriously involved in the sport, from breeders, owners, racetracks, should be doing something about this. If the sport never has any heroes, it could collapse. I honestly believe that thoroughbred racing could see a serious decline if this trend continues.

But the sport is in denial. Just imagine how many baseball fans there'd be iif there were no great players who had long careers. I became a baseball fan because of Mickey Mantle. I became a racing fan because of Secretariat, but I enjoyed many years of watching some of my favorites thoroughbreds like Forego, John Henry, Seattle Slew, Affirmed, Alydar. Affirmed, John Henry, and Secretariat all won two Horse of the Year titles, and Forego won 3 times. Cigar was Horse of the Year in 1995 and 96. My favorite thoroughbred of all time was Ruffian, but unfortunately she broke down and had to be destroyed after she took a bad step while travelling at world record speed in an ill-advised match race over a track (Belmont) that had been in bad shape (a lot of horses breaking down) all meet.

 Ruffian was the fastest horse I ever saw. At least she ran enough times to prove that she was the fastest filly of all time. Many of today's stars never get that chance.