I'm not defending the Mehmas decision at all but why seize on it as if it's somehow typical of Flat racing? It isn't. It's rare for a horse to be retired to stud after just one season. It certainly happened with Dark Angel. If I remember rightly, Holy Roman Emperor was retired suddenly to fill the gap caused by George Washington's fertility problem and Teofilo couldn't race as planned at three due to injury. But the Post regularly features a steady stream of Flat horses making their hundredth career appearance. The template for many jumpers, particularly the better ones, seems to be four or five runs a season or thereabouts. Don Poli and Djakadam, for example, have each had a total of nine runs in the last two seasons.
Cue Card would rightly be held up by most people as an example of a horse who epitomises everything that is good about NH racing: fearlessly campaigned in high class races, a byword for longevity. In just over six and a half years, he has run thirty one times. Sheikhzayedroad's Doncaster Cup win last week came in the thirty fifth run of his four and a half year career to date.
Custom Cut's second to Awtaad at Leopardstown last weekend was his fifty second race. He has run twenty eight times in thirty months since joining O'Meara.
When Found runs in the Arc next month it will be her nineteenth run in just over two years, seventeen of them in G1 company in four different countries.
These are just examples. I've no doubt plenty of jumpers can be found who've had long and very active careers but I'm not advocating one code over the the other.
The cliche remains: jumpers are "old friends" who we see season after season and grow to love whereas Flat horses are only around for two minutes. But that's the cliche. In reality, it's not as clear cut as that.
I don't agree with the Mehmas retirement but we've come a long way from the Sangster/MVOB days of the best Flat horses being routinely rushed off to stud too early and the days of top-class jumpers running many times per season and taking on all-comers are also long gone.
