Curlin is not a " great " horse. He's a very good horse.

BTW I'm curious who in your mind is a "great" horse? I know you and several others "blasted" me for saying Ginger Punch was great so I'm wondering what in your mind makes a "great" horse.

By the way did you lose the picture of GP or did you manage to hold onto it for the day?

I actually have it....shockingly I didn't lose it.

Repeated superiority while running many fast races. I think greatness is very rare.

Look at it this way, while it is not his fault, what if Bernardini and Invasor had stayed around all last year, and Street Sense, Hard Spun, and Any Given Saturday had stayed around this year. Do you think Curlin would have had an unblemished record? Now, this is no knock on him, more an attempt to put things in perspective. Horses these days don't get the opportunities to prove their potential " greatness " but running mildly fast ( for top horses ) races while beating Barcolo and Past the Point doesn't make a horse great.

Do you think Roses in May was a great horse? Do you honestly think Curlin has shown on the racetrack that he is vastly superior to him? How do you think Ginger Punch would have done against Go for Wand? How about Inside Information or even Heavenly Prize? Forget them....she wouldn't have beaten their much less heralded stablemate Dispute. She may be " great " relative to her current competition but greatness has to be measured against history. Against history these horses are relative also rans.

Curlin would have traded decisions with Albert the Great. He would have gotten dusted by Street Cry. Lido Palace would have given him a rough time ( in his 4YO year ). This is no criticism, as these were exceptionally talented horses, but do you think of them as great? Being better than your competition does not make you great.

Now that's a ringing endorsement of Hooves' 'capping.

:zz:

Man i need the drugs your on !!!!!:rolleyes: ,
You actually believe that :confused: ,,All horses have a curve but the question is when all these horses are at the top of their curve who are Great & who are Talented no disrespect but wow if i was a bookie i would take your money & just smile when you handed it over at the race meet street cry vrses Curlin & think cool my family all gets steak tonight ;)

The emoticons don't hide the complete inaccuracy of your post. In fact, they accentuate it.

In that case all i can do is reply with a emoticon ....


.

The interesting thing about your post is the blatant contradiction. If you think the best races of a horse define them then you really need to carefully review Street Cry's Stephen Foster. Quite simply, it is two or three lengths better than any race Curlin ever ran.

yesh i should have zipped my pie hole...though it would get some conversation going..

:D nothing wrong with that. I wanna beat Curlin today too, but there isn't a horse in here that can.

Street Cry vs Curlin? Please. Street Cry, easily.

Anyone that says an off track will compromise Curlin today is really reaching.

Head To Head??
 

Mambo In Seattle or Stones River?

I'll take Stones River


Angliana or Merchant Marine?

I'll take Angliana


Better Scratch??
Timber Reserve or Frost Giant ? :zz:

Ive read lots of posts on different boards on the subject of "greatness" and this is one of the best. Thank you.

To add a little bit, MDO would have no doubt beaten Curlin consistently at 9f. The Emoticon poster talks about grading horses at their best, but would Curlin's best beat Aptititude's JCGC? Candy Ride's Pac Classic? St Liam's woodward?

Curlin is a very nice horse and certainly accomplished. In the context of history, he doesnt even rate. In the context of the last ten years? He is not even top five.

Wanderin Boy can have a career best if he gets an uncontested lead; and without an improvement from Curlin's form since Dubai....

I thought all hooves stated in the first post was
Curlin is going down. So its not legal to make
a prediction without an accompanying plan to make
money on it...

Noted.

This may sound crazy, but I think Merchant Marine can surprise today. He can certainly hit the board and if for whatever reason Curlin isn't at his best. He may even upset the applecart. He's totally off everyone's radar.

He's definitely got a shot if Curlin doesn't fire.

Usually thing for me is trying to stay away from the wiseguy horses, I do like his pattern of a 7 1/2 f sprint win to a 1 mile work, if he can put up a career best number it will be certainly worth the bang for the buck investment.

Too bad Timber Reserve had to scratch...

Why is Big Brown's name missing from this post? :)

In my opinion is to throw out the top two seeded horses and pick two others that you think could (not will) legitimately win and play them across the board. Other than Mambo and Curlin, I see some very nice odds.