Horse getting better or just a fluke?

[Greeko Holdem]

We often talk about horses dying off quick and the life span of horses are short but we never talk about horses getting better with age.


Here is an example of a horse .. Is this horse getting better or is it just my imagination?? I was ready to retire this horse but dropped him in 38500 claimers, instead of continuing to drop in class, I stepped the horse up in class added blinkers and tongue tie and the horse has won back to back including a stake div A race.


This horse was 0 for 9 to start career

https://www.digitaldowns.us/new_horse_sta...cc=1&p1=913713

[Lone Star Stables]

Horses do get better ,and he has gotten better . 0 for 9 your a bad parent . he had a 2nd and 2 thirds vs some deep fields . I would say he was 3 for 9 hitting the boards . Good Luck

[Aragon Stables]

Interesting topic.

I don't have enough data to know what constitutes a horse being 'better' post age change, because there is no singular number that tells us how 'good' our horses are anyway.

But I have definitely noticed that more 3/4/5 year olds are racable over the past season or so. I think the changes to the weights have helped that. 14 of my 26 wins this season have been from horses that are 3/4/5.

Is that because my horses got 'better'from a raw numbers perspective? Doubtful for all of them. Did they have bad age changes, but just ''less bad'' than other horses, maybe. Did some other stable owners shoot some horses that were of similar abilities to mine, therefore arbitrarily making my horses 'better', possibly. It's overall likely some combination of the 3. I know I'm shooting far less now. I rolled over everything that had cashed in one of it's last 3 starts to the new season ( even if they had been parked for a month or 2 ) and most are looking worth a run in the new season. That's a bonus.

One thing I do know is that a horses preferences can change at the age change. I have many horses that preferred one distance as a 2YO, only to prefer a different one as a 3YO. So if you're not training your horses at season roll over and just chucking them back in at their previous level, you're not maximising your stable. The fact that you changed adds is interesting. It's not something I have much data on, but if unlimited training in the new season is going to be a thing that stays around, there's no reason not to try it. Sadly I was too busy in the New Year to fully utilise it this time around. But given that a horses distance preference can change, it makes sense that it's preference in tack could change. Because the adds aren't a straight ''make horse better or worse'' button. They can make a horse better or worse, but by varying some stats and therefor times/splits. As a 2YO the horse may not have wanted Bute because it wanted a mile or longer and it was detrimental at that distance, but as a 3YO it's works show it wants to be a 4F burner, and it loves the Bute at 4F. So your horse has gone from having no Bute added, to Bute added following the age change. This specific example is made up but gives an example of what can happen as a horse ages, that I think a lot of stables are not investigating to get the most from their runners.

Overall personally I feel like my horses are usable for longer. The complete misses still exist as they should, but I usually feel that I'm going to recoup at worst half the cost of a horse over it's lifetime as a worst case scenario and I can live with that being the floor for return. This is of course taking into account my play style, strike rate, training process, entry level etc. If you're going to throw overmatched horses into high entry races where they can't win at a decent clip you're going to lose no matter what, but that's on the stable owner.

So congratz Greeko for persevering with that horse and reaping the rewards in the new season