This is not about physical prep. Maybe more mental and emotional prep.
Bottom line, you cannot deny this: a horse has no idea what is planned, he really has no idea this is a job and competition. He chooses nothing; humans choose for him if they want to race him. He has no say.
He doesn’t plan because he is not human, and he cannot tell us when he doesn’t feel well and not up to the level of the stake requested of him.
Thus it is up to humans to figure that out as best they can.
Making this a requirement is ludicrous. What meaning has a TC when it will always result in a couple horses competing and nary a full field. That is not competition.
Increasing requirements is another thing. There really should be BETTER horses in these alleged elite races. Many times most of them are really dismal.
Mental and emotional preparation - those sure are some fuzzy things to quantify. In every other sport, we focus on equating the one thing we can control - physical exposure to the sport. Again, it is odd that horse racing has chosen not to do this and it leaves many casual observers scratching their heads.
As for the “three-race” requirement, by your logic, having qualifying trials and heats in other racing sports is ludicrous, but yet, everyone seems to agree this is the best way to do it. I don’t understand why there is such resistance and hostility toward bringing horse racing “up to date.” Every other sport aligns financial incentives with winning (you keep winning, you make more money and if you lose, you’re out) but horse racing has aligned the biggest financial incentives in the sport’s biggest races with being the “spoiler.”
If horses must be in all three races and only the “best” advance, please explain to me how this is considered the best form of competition in every other sport but is somehow “not competition” in horse racing. What exactly is anti-competitive about you win, you’re in, you lose/sit-out, you’re out?