Eclipse for Finley

All you have to do is watch yesterday's video of Zenyatta romping around her new paddock under the careful eyes of grooms at every corner, to realize how modern thoroughbred racehorses are pampered. From the moment they are born, these expensive animals are treated like the "investments" that many people consider them to be. They are worth lots of money so it behooves them to stay healthy.

All of which is an oxymoron if you are a horse. Trust me, even if you put them in a padded paddock, some horses would find a way to get into trouble. That's just the nature of the beast.

Some people wonder if all this coddling is actually doing damage to the breed. Bill Finley, in fact, a veteran reported, recently won an Eclipse Award for his excellent investigation of this very subject in the Thoroughbred Daily News. It is a wonderful piece of journalism, well researched and written, and you owe it to yourself to take a look at it.

And then perhaps someone can explain to me the biggest paradox of all: Why, if "black type" (stakes winners) race horses are worth so much money, would any trainer inject any type of performance enhancing substance, legal or illegal, into them, considering the long term implications for the breed? Money, of course, is the reason, but the true money in the industry is made in the breeding shed, not on the track.

That high stud fee, based on "black type", is not going to last when none of the offspring can run. Trust me, it's happening more and more.

It will be most interesting to see how the offspring of both Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta perform over the long haul. I would like to believe that a healthy horse begets other healthy horses, but its getting harder and harder to tell where to start.