The Long Game - what can be done to bolster the “staying” division?
/Words - Annie Lambert
North American distance races appear to have an ever-shrinking number of entries. The pool of horses willing and able to run a route of ground has slowly contracted. Finding a reason as to why, however, does not have a singular answer.
The Jockey Club statistics expose a downward trend in foals produced in the United States. The mid-1980s saw the high point with the 1985 foal crop exceeding 50,000 registered foals. But since that peak, the numbers have slipped. The economic downturn in 2008 caused many breeders to sell off or curtail breeding operations, which led to the number of foals falling from around 32,000 in 2008 to just over 17,000 in 2021.
That stunning 45% decline of potential runners could explain smaller fields, but not necessarily a loss of distance runners. Or could it?
Fewer horses to enter races with certain conditions revolves into a vicious circle; when racing secretaries cannot fill longer races, for example, they will inevitably offer fewer of them.
It does not come across as though lagging purses are the biggest culprits, but it may be that breeders are looking toward pedigrees that produce runners with more speed than endurance. Do sprinters provide a faster return? Economics usually proves a strong motivator, especially in such a competitive industry as Thoroughbred horse racing.
Fewer breeders breeding fewer Thoroughbreds in general, plus more commercial breeders seeking speed that sells, could be a major factor.
One thing for certain is that no one can offer a definitive answer as to why it is difficult to fill races at classic distances. Solutions to the problem are also elusive. Those within the Thoroughbred racing industry will only offer personal hypotheses.
Nature, Nurture & Breeding
The modern Thoroughbred’s ancestry traces back to foundation sires imported to Europe around the turn of the 17th century. The Darley Arabian, the Godolphin Arabian and the Byerly Turk, from the Mediterranean Middle East, were crossed on native English equines. The result was a horse that could carry weight while sustaining speed over extended distances.
The foundation Thoroughbred originated in Great Britain with its genetic origin being Arabian, which might suggest endurance. Generations of selective breeding have sped up the North American Thoroughbred. Study condition books from any racecourse, and you’ll find only a small percentage of distance races— those being one mile and one eighth or further.
When it comes to breeding, experts often disagree on the heritability factor of genes—heritability being a measurement of how completely a trait is passed down through the genes.
E. Gus Cothran, PhD, was formerly a research professor with the University of Kentucky’s Department of Veterinary Science. The emeritus professor is currently an advisor and consultant to the Department of Veterinary Integrative Biosciences (VIBS) at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. The retired professor believes racing performance has a heritability of 30–35%. The remaining 65–70% he attributes to non-inherited factors, the likes of training, nutrition and health care.
“Very few people understand heritability,” Cothran said. “It’s the trait itself that has the heritability of roughly a third. That means that about 30% of what causes the trait is genetic, and the rest of it is environmental. It has to do with training and upbringing; about a third is nature and two-thirds nurture.”
Having a low genetic contribution to the trait means it will be more difficult to select for thorough breeding, according to Cothran. A complicated trait is probably made up of multiple genes having to interact. For example, there are multiple genes that would contribute to speed.
“Typical animal improvement breeding practices, which means you pick the animals that have the traits you desire to the highest degree you can find, breed them together and hope they will produce individuals that are equal or better than the parents,” Cothran explained. “And you’d have to do that probably several generations to make a large improvement, if it is even possible.”
“There may be one gene that has a maximum contribution to speed, one form of it, [for example] a particular gene with muscle characteristics,” the professor added. “But by itself, it is only going to make up a little bit of the total package of the speed.”
Andy Havens, founder of Havens Bloodstock Agency, Inc. in California, sees the trend toward speed; but he believes his ideas as to why things have changed are merely guesses as there are no statistics to back up the ideas.
“I think the phenomenon is real,” Havens said of vanishing distance horses. “For a number of years and for a number of reasons the trend has turned more toward speed-oriented racing on the dirt, going away from the European type distance horses. Most of the races, other than Del Mar, that were longer races have been shortened.”
A Turn of Foot
California-based, multiple-graded stakes-winning trainer Leonard Powell believes a lot of breeders are looking toward marketing their equine product. Since speed sells, there may be fewer classic-distance horses being produced. Powell hails from a racing family in France, riding races and training there prior to relocating to the United States. He has had plenty of experience with route horses.
“We run all day in Europe and have one pace, and it isn’t that way here,” Powell pointed out. “We bring middle-distance horses here; you want a horse that has a turn of foot. He can go a mile, mile and one eighth. With tactical speed, you can be in a good spot.”
Powell noted that the racing office has trouble filling races going one mile and one eighth or further. Those races might draw five or six horses on a good draw, but if they drop the race back to one mile and one sixteenth, it will have a full field.
Jeff Mullins is based at Santa Anita and recently set up an annex stable at Gulfstream Park. He was hoping the condition book in Florida would provide more opportunities, and larger purses, for his distance runners; that turned out not to be the case.
“A lot of those [classic distance] horses have gone elsewhere, where there is more money,” Mullins opined. “If you go to Churchill or Keeneland or Oaklawn, those purses are higher than California.”
Mullins, with career earnings approaching $55 million, has won graded stakes with imported horses, the likes of Itsinthepost (FR), Battle of Hastings (GB) and River Boyne (IRE). He and his customers choose European horses for their surface preferences as much as their running distances.
“We purchase some sprinters and some distance horses—it just depends on the horse,” he said. “The main thing that we look for over there are horses that like firm ground.”
According to Mullins, there are not enough distance horses in California to fill those races, but “there are not enough horses in California period.”
It’s Not Just Canada
Scott Lane, racing secretary at Woodbine in Ontario, Canada, was quick to point out that a lack of entries in stayer races was not solely a Canadian problem.
“It’s a North American issue,” he lamented, “not just a Woodbine issue.”
Lane did not have an “expert reason” why the problem exists, but thought there were many more stallions with shorter-distance pedigrees.
“You see a lot of middle-distance, milers now that are the vast percentage of the sires available in North America,” he pointed out. “You just don’t see many of those classic-distance horses that are going to stud, horses that race at a mile and a half and a mile and three quarters. You don’t see many of those turned into studs. That could be a reason why.”
Havens, a leader in bloodstock sales in California for over 30 years, would agree with Lane’s opinion on North American stallions. Very few stallions that are primarily distance horses seem popular with breeders.
“All I can really say is, it’s a function of selecting the stallions that we like,” Havens offered. “I think the choices of stallions that we go to stud with are speed oriented horses that like to run early. We like those really hot, brilliant horses that are precocious enough as two-year-olds to get enough experience to run in the classics [at three].”
Lane, who has written Woodbine’s condition book since 2019, leaned away from blaming North American purse structures. He cited Gulfstream’s $3 Million Pegasus World Cup (Gr. 1), as a case in point. In the field of nine, only first placed Life Is Good (Into Mischief) and runner up Knicks Go (Paynter) had won Gr. 1 stakes. The balance of the field, although most were graded stakes placed, had not.
“We have two Gr. 1’s [at Woodbine] going a mile and a half on the turf that we’ve seen very difficult to fill over the last couple of years, unless we get some European interest,” Lane cited. “With the [pandemic] travel restrictions we had to modify those races a little bit.
“For the Valedictory Stakes (Gr. 3) we cut back from a mile and three quarters to a mile and a half. The Singspiel Stakes (Gr. 3) used to be at a mile and a half and is now a mile and three eighths. We’ve modified our distances to try and suit some of the handicap horses that [normally] go a route of ground at a mile and a sixteenth to a mile and a quarter to try and help fill longer races.”
Those changes, and other distance race changes around North America, may prove a lack of quantity and quality of horses for the stayer divisions everywhere. Many more horses are bred to sprint or run middle distances, according to Lane.
“We never have problems filling Woodbine races from five furlongs up to seven furlongs,” he noted. “You start getting to a mile and a sixteenth, we still have a lot of interest for those races. A mile and a quarter and over, we don’t have as many of those horses with the classic pedigree, so to say, anymore. We definitely see the farther you go, the less and less pool of horses you have to pick from. It’s just the way it is now.”
Texas Hold ‘Em
Texas Thoroughbred racing has had its ups and downs for decades but is ascending in recent years with popular racetracks, high-value incentive programs and prospering horse auctions. Ken Carson is the general manager of Valor Farm in Pilot Point, Texas, which was founded by Dorothy and Clarence Scharbauer who campaigned 1987 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Alysheba (Alydar). Their son, Doug Scharbauer, now owns the farm.
Carson, who has been on the Texas Thoroughbred Association board for nearly 30 years, agrees breeding trends are at least partially responsible for decreasing distance horse numbers. He does, however, have a lot of clients that breed to race.
Although Carson is a Texas native, he spent a decade or more in Kentucky working many facets of the racing industry, including five years as pedigree consultant at Three Chimneys Farm in Versailles. Carson believes commercial breeders have contributed in part to the vanishing distance horse pool.
“The market drives the bus,” Carson voiced. “The speedier horses sell better; they look better at the sales, and you don’t wait as long on them. I’m not saying it’s right, but I think that’s driving a lot of it. The two-year-old in training sales—they work an eighth real fast, and they bring the big dough.”
Conformation traits of speedier pedigrees tend to portray a more precocious individual. They appear balanced as though they are mature and grown into their frame, even as a two-year-old. Distance horses are often rangier, long-bodied with leaner muscle leaving their overall look as not being finished, which they are not. It will usually take that immature looking distance-bred horse longer to mature physically as well. Thus, the economics of a quick return are diminished.
Carson has no doubt there are still North American mare owners breeding to increase those classic distance horses—even in Texas. After many years of deflated numbers, The Jockey Club report of the number of mares bred shows Texas annual foal numbers are rising.
Most acknowledge the trend toward fewer stayers is real. It seems to have crept into the industry slowly, but does anyone truly care? It would not seem so.
“I don’t think it is a planned influence,” Havens opined of the shorter-faster phenomenon. “I don’t know if anybody really thinks it’s a problem.”
Hybrid Stayers
With a shortage of distance horses in North America—those running one mile and one eighth or further—steeplechase horses occasionally take to the flat track to help alleviate the problem.
Scott Lane, racing secretary at Woodbine in Ontario, Canada, said the hybrids are “few and far between now,” but they can help to fill a race now and again.
“[Trainer] Jonathan Sheppard comes to mind as one that would have some of those hybrid horses,” Lane pointed out. “They’d see a flat race at Delaware, then go to Saratoga and run over the hurdles. You do see some horses that race here through the years that transition to the hurdles afterwards. Some of the United States interest will buy these horses that are no longer competing at Woodbine and transition them into the U.S. hurdle races during the summer months.
“They have extensive hunt meet racing from July through October with races in Virginia and Maryland; and I think probably South Carolina and Pennsylvania. The top ones run in Saratoga in the summer.”