Breeders not to blame for increasing emphasis on speed

Tuesday's Racing Post featured the thoughts of John Gosden on how the rise of breeding for speed was causing long-term damage to the thoroughbred breed.

Gosden made several salient points, namely the need for staying races to remain a prominent feature of the programme book and that Coolmore deserve all the myriad successes that come their way since they first pursued the stock of Northern Dancer - a move that many years later led to them owning undoubtedly the greatest stallion of our times, Galileo.

I'm sure Gosden didn't intend to point the finger at any particular individuals, but his point could easily be construed as placing those who breed for speed as the root cause of the problem.