In no particular order (although my favorite is at the top):

Easy Goer
Sunday Silence
Silver Charm
Skip Away
Unbridled
Barbaro
Holy Bull
Alysheba
Victory Gallop
Tabasco Cat
Serena's Song
Tiznow
Thunder Gulch
Winning Colors
Xtra Heat
A.P. Indy
Favorite Trick
Forty Niner
Afleet Alex
Curlin
Point Given
Go for Wand
Summer Squall
Real Quiet
Bellamy Road (I know this one will baffle people, but if this horse had been able to stay sound, I believe he could have been a great one.)

no ..ten most wanted /rock hard ten...i remenber you bieng a fan of one of those.......

That was Buffy.

sorry.....

got to give rags to riches a shout..winning the belmont and all

Yeah, I realize he was a better 2 year old, but his gutsy Jim Dandy impressed me because he wasn't a horse that liked the distance at all. Definitely not one of the better choices on there, but more one that I enjoyed watching.

Cajun,
I am not one of Smarty's biggest fans....but not even in the top 25?
I would certainly take him over Summer Squall.

Oh wait....never mind Smarty.....I just noticed that you don't have Risen Star on your list.
He is a must as far as I am concerned.

I will get blasted from here to high kingdom if I post how I felt about Smarty (but here you go anyway)... sure, he was a nice horse, but IMO that crop left a lot to be desired. His 2nd place finish in the Belmont was one of the most hard trying races I've ever seen a colt put himself through, but other than that, I just have a hard time including him.

Forgot him to be honest. :o

funny cide,sea hero ,pleasent tap ,freehouse,captain bodget

You crack me up. :D

You won't get blasted by me about Smarty Jones.
He wouldn't be in my top ten, but I am a little shocked to not see him in a top 25.
Truth be told, I thought about including Birdstone in my list but he was a last minute cut. I think he is one of the most underappreciated horses of the last decade. People act like his win that day was a complete fluke when really, on a dry track going 10f or beyond, he was a pretty good colt.


But, let's not turn this thread into yet another one about that race.

Dinard didn't beat Olympio in the Santa Anita Derby, cuz Olympio wasn't in that race. Dinard did beat Olympio as a 3yo by a mere nose in the since defunct Los Feliz, a restricted one mile stakes run early in the SA winter meet.

Dinard bested an off the bench Best Pal twice leading up to the Derby (in two slowly rated races), but his season was cut short by injury. He returned the following winter at SA to get lit up by Olympio in the Malibu (by 9 lengths or so) and followed that up with a drubbing at the hands of Best Pal (in career form at the time) in the Strub Stakes.

Both Dinard and Olympio never ran again after the Strub. Best Pal ran for about 10 more years.

Saarland

This is funny. :D

This is very tricky because we must weigh TC races heavily, but after that how much weight. Obviously the BC... beating older horses... and then are we counting sprinters. So I stuck with the longer horses. And then the tough part about one or two great races and no more but good progeny, it all gets in the way. The order at the top I like, but after that move em around.

Spectacular Bid
Point Given
Affirmed
Sunday Silence
Skip Away
Tiznow
Smarty Jones
Alysheba
Real Quiet
Silver Charm
Thunder Gulch
Easy Goer
Unbridled
AP Indy
Alydar
Holy Bull
Curlin
Funny Cide
Hansel
Afleet Alex

pound away...

Past 20 years, Pgardn.

The Bid would have been at the top of my list all all time greats. Love that horse!

You forgot Citation and Man O War

Ok so I went 30...

OOps.

Excuse me for being old... and unable to read.

LMFAO :D

I probably would have spent all night adding horses if it were the past 30 years. :eek:

So I like the year 1977 -2007. Got into this in the 70's.

But for God's sake I was not around for WWI thanks alot.

Have you been alive for 30 years...?
The 70's were loaded. So I just happened upon 1977...
If earlier I would have been in real trouble.
What time is it?

Not quite. Easy Goer was the horse who got me into racing (I was almost 9.) Still, I didn't have to see The Bid in person to know that he was a great horse... thank heavens for video. :cool:

Put that video down and just watch Secretariat.
You dont need to see anymore than that.
That is the only good thing about being as old as I am.

That depresses me.

I'm knocking on 30s' door... that depresses ME. :(

30's arent so bad. 40's has been a little rough...

If you are weighing TC races then how can you leave out Monarchos? I can't, and I couldn't stand the horse.

i'm surprised nobody mentioned awesome again. i know he might not have accomplished as much as a 3yo as touch gold, but c'mon.

dinard was a monster before getting hurt. his win over best pal and apollo was a great race.

did anyone list tiznow? not many horses debut as a 3yo and win HOY that same year.

fupeg, when on his game, would beat most of the names i've seen on this list. well, at least a lot of them, if not most.

indian charlie never got to prove how good he really was, but i feel he's definitely among the best on any of these lists. he kicked the crap out of some nice horses butt's in his limited time racing, including real quiet, artax and old trieste.

unbridled on his day was pretty damn nice.

king glorious was pretty awesome.

You are correct about the SA Derby. However, you are incorrect about the Los Feliz. In that race, Dinard, in his second career race, dusted Olympio by about five under a hand ride. It was Olympio that came back to beat Dinard by a nose in the San Vicente (1:21 1/5). Dinard then returned to win the San Rafael by a nose over Apollo, also beating Best Pal and Mane Minister, the 2-3 finishers in the Kentucky Derby. After that, Dinard won the SA Derby, again beating Best Pal and Mane Minister (Mane Minister was third in all three TC races) as well as San Felipe winner Sea Cadet and Scan, who went on to win two grade ones later in that year.

Dinard was not the same horse after his injury and if you want to hold his losses afterwards against him, that's fine. But it seems like you are making an effort to take away what he did do and in the winter of 1991, I don't think there was a better 3yo and Dinard was the favorite for the Kentucky Derby.

Hansel was much sharper in his final two preps for the Derby than Dinard was. Of course, Hansel was decidedly flat in the Derby off those performances.

Considering the 3 gut busting stretch runs Dinard had to uncork in his final 3 preps (all resulting in close finishes...and probably the injury that forced him to the bench) its hard to say that the Derby was at his mercy, either.

Best Pal ran his SA preps like a short horse rounding into form (sharp middle moves with an even finish). I wouldn't necessarily take his sharp second in the Derby as proof that Dinard would have been right there had he held together.

Right on the money...

When you get to your 50's , the 30-40's all seems like easy street. Enjoy it while you can.

;)

So instead of naming the top 25 in the last 20 years, you named the top 20 in the last 30 years.
That makes Hansel's inclusion on your list even more strange.

Awesome Again didn't win a single G1 as a 3yo, and won only one graded stakes race (the Jim Dandy). He was much better at 4.
I agree on Tiznow and Unbridled. They were both on my list.

Smarty Jones first 10 furlongs in the Belmont were fantastic. His last two furlongs have to be the most overrated in the history of the sport. The only reason he "showed so much heart" was cause Birdstone was running so damn slow. Imagine if you had a horse coming at the end just with solid closing fractions of 25.00 instead of 26.42. You then would have had that horse making up an extra ten lengths on Smarty in the stretch and it would have looked like they ran by him while he was standing still. Would anyone be talking about his heart then? I don't want to take anything away from the first 10 furlongs he ran in that race but this idea that he showed so much heart in the final two furlongs is nothing more than an optical illusion created by how slow Birdstone was also going.