You missed Sweet Northern Saint who in the final flash went off the favorite in Barbaro's '06 romp. SNS is still burning people's money at even money odds.

Seriously, that situation does not look like it's going to end pretty.

Don't sell yourself short....you're missing more than that.

Being that most top horses retire early, and never get to meet horses of other generations, there really is no unbiased way to compare them without using speed figures. Since Beyers are the most widespread it is hardly surprising that people use them as the example.

The more you read, the more you will know that almost everything in horse racing depends on Beyer Speed Figures on this board.

They are the Bible here.

You know what we ought to do is take the best sets of BSFs from three year olds to determine who really are the top 25. I wonder where Lionheart comes out. Or LITF, or Go for Gin..

Top 25 Lightning Will Not Strike Twice 3yos:

Honor Grades after Summer Squall
Tiago after Giacomo
Cahill Road after Unbridled
Prince of Thieves after Timber Country
Rebel Alliance after Sunday Silence
Demons Begone before Pine Bluff
Honor Grades before AP Indy
Pleasant Tap before Go For Gin
Hold That Tiger after Editor's Note
Tossofthecoin before Charismatic
Millenium Wind after Charismatic
So Long Birdie after Birdstone
Fast Play after Seeking The Gold
Citidancer before Will's Way
Excavate before Menifee
Bravo Mondo after Hansel
Corker after Strodes Creek
Exetera after Sea Cadet
On Target after Sea Cadet
Defere after Dehere
Pendleton Ridge before Lost Mountain
Exploit after Prized
Whywhywhy before Spellbinder
Spellbinder after Whywhywhy
Jazil before Rags To Riches

I don't know why I left LQ and Tabasco Cat on there. But let's look at the rest. You obviously are looking at only what the horses did in the remainder of their 3yo seasons. So with that in mind, how do Harlan's Holiday, Cryptoclearance, and Kissin Kris make it but Flower Alley doesn't? Harlan's Holiday won the Penn Derby and Cryptoclearance won the Pegasus. You make not like fillies much but isn't Serena's Song's Haskell against the boys the equal of Kissin Kris' win in the same race? I thought that Nobiz was at least as good as Favorite Trick was.

as a kid, for some odd reason i was a huge Corker fan. i had put some money on him through my dad when he first started and broke his maiden. i wonder if he's still alive.

I missed Flower Alley, too. I don't really care for Harlan's Holiday either, so he can replace him. Cryptoclearance butted heads with all sorts of good horses in '87 and the Pegasus was still Grade 1 at the time so he stays.

Serena's Song is a filly. She doesn't qualify.

Nobiz Like Shobiz was good for about the last 400 yards of the lowly Jamaica. Other than that, his performances all year were atrocious. He sucks. Favorite Trick won the Jim Dandy. That's huge in my book.

I think Cryptoclearance was a very good horse and deserves to be on the list. He just came in a really tough year. But if winning a single grade one afterwards gets you on, there are quite a few that I wonder about. Lion Heart won the Haskell. Is the Haskell no longer up to the level of the Dandy? I notice you have Favorite Trick and Fly So Free on there (both Dandy winners) but not Lion Heart and Serena's Song, both Haskell winners. If it seems like I'm questioning your opinions, I'm sorry. I'm not meaning too. I just wondered what were determining factors for you in who does or doesn't make it. For the record, I'd agree with about 80% of your list so we aren't that far off.

Lion Heart was second. I was restricting it to off-the-board horses. Serena's Song was too obvious, so I just tossed cuz she ran against fillies for the most part. Otherwise, I just went year by year and then narrowed it down to 25. I actually thought I had Corporate Report on there, but totally missed Flower Alley.

To be perfectly honest the whole impetus to make that list was to get Lost Mountain's name thrown into this thread. I always hated that horse but it's hard to deny him some recognition when he has the Peter Pan, Dwyer, and Haskell on his post-Derby resume.

If we are talking fillies, where is Silverbulletday? She won 8 Graded Stakes as a 3YO. 4 G1's, 2 G2's and 3's.

That may not be as easy as it appears. When the results are tabulated, they may need to 'adjust' the figures.

I guess JJ never saw Groovy

OH man...that's my schtick!! I used to get humiliated on the other board for doing this!!

Actually, that is the best idea on this thread. I wish I had access to all of them. I think 1987 was the first year they were published so they should all be out there somewhere. They (or other speed figures) are the only fair way to compare horses from different crops.

LOL, I originally credited you for it but then I wasn't sure if you'd want me to or not so I deleted it.

Once again, as Beyer has said, they only adjust figs in an attempt to make them more accurate.

What is your, or any of the previous posters that took silly and ignorant potshots, knowledge of figuremaking? How many years did you make them? At what tracks? Where do you stand on split variants? How do you view pace as it affects final time and do you personally adjust your numbers to take this into account?

It's always amazing to me that pass that Groovy and Housebuster get for being brilliant in every other race and then coming up with a loss in the BC while Fog is not given the same pass. Especially since he was dead half a year later. Hell, Groovy flopped not once but TWICE, both times at odds-on.

Housebuster was injured in the BC and Groovy didn't " flop " in the manner that Lost in the Fog did. Also, in a mild defense of Groovy, he had the unfortunate " luck " of having the BC run in California in successive years.

How familiar are you with Groovy's entire resume? How about Housebuster's before it was laid out in this thread?