ice box is a nice horse..every other derby horse had at least two bad legs of the tc..i cashed on him in the fla derby and the kd.. the price was crazy in the belmont..

they all[ 3 year old crop ]would look overrated if eskandera was healthy.

Based on what? Who in this Country is 100% better then him right now? At best you could name 3 horses, and thats even pushing it.... How is he not the clear cut second best older male in training, and if he came along a year earlier he would have won the Older Male title last year, you cant tell me he would not have crushed Bullsbay, and Macho Again on a regular basis. Nevermind... He did beat up on them, as a 3yr old.

See Dougie's post on finding overrated horses.

overrated---------Gio Ponti

underrated--------Quality Road

If this was a year with no smack talk between Zen and Rachel, Q Road would truly be front and center with no equals.

Gio Ponti sometimes just barely good enough and other times not, BC champ race might have made many believe he was better than he really is.

Eskendrya is far from great.... but to stress being healthy as a big part of being great is silly.

It's like saying Zenyatta or Azeri can't be great no matter what because they didn't stand up to the rigors to make it to the races early on .. and were handled with extreme kid gloves while action starved owners pressed their good fillys for blacktype in all those key Graded Stakes restricted to 2yo's and 3yo's.

I know Rags To Riches was born the same year as Zenyatta .. I actually thought Nashoba's Key was a 2004 foal as well but I looked and saw she was 2003. Do you think any less of Nashoba's Key's ability as a race horse because she killed herself acting up in her stall?

... I'd have to list ALL of them!

I'm a moron but you just reminded me of something...

When I was doing this thread, before I was interrrupted? Gio was my pick for overrated and Wiener Walzer (GER) for underrated.

Stupid kids making me blank out! :eek: :D

Granted his 2010 has been rather underwhelming thus far but Gio Ponti's 4 race winning streak in 2009 in Grade I races from 8-11 furlongs was awfully strong.

It's tough to have an underrated/overrated list when most horses are so bad.

NT

glad I refreshed your memory

Two underappreciated horses are Musket Man and The Usual Q.T.

A previously overrated, but now exposed, horse has to be Munnings.

Afleet Alex was also far from great.

His crop was pretty dimsal.

He was behind Bellamy Road in the Derby betting and was beaten by Giacomo and Closing Argument.

As impressive as he was in victory in the Preakness and Belmont ... Scrappy T was 2nd in the Preakness and the horrid Andromeda's Hero and maiden Nolan's Cat finished 2nd and 3rd to him in the Belmont.

overrated?

zenyatta
rachel



underrated?

any horses compared to the above two.

I think Left Bank is a bit underrated....You dont hear much about him, but his last 2 career races were pretty big. He also won the Met Mile and was a champion. How many horses win the Met, Tom Fool and Whitney? How many horses run 120 plus beyers going 7f and 9f?

He won the Cigar, not the Met Mile..

Sorry... I was looking at his pp's in the Champions book, I thought it was the Met. Still pretty impressive though, IMO

Love that book...I got the revised edition and look back through it all the time.