Dwindling by Decade
Striking chart from Steven Crist documenting the declining number of average starts made by Horses of the Year from 1960 to 2009.
One thing that jumps out is that the average number of starts for HOTYs as a group doesn’t deviate significantly from the average number of starts for all runners in those decades, with the exception of the 1990s, when the average number of starts was 9.2 for HOTYs to 7.7 for all. Was there something about that era that made elite horses more likely to run?
