Make that 100% of the time ... if ...

... if it's a prep race early in the year.

If it's a horse's farewell appearance before going to stud ... then hey, why not?

In Bellamy Road's case ... it was almost BOTH ... a prep race AND a farewell appearance.

Always listen to Dixie, folks ... and remember ... he doesn't really have a piece of assistant on this forum.

Stevie Wonderboy, Barbaro, Bellamy Road, Rockport Harbor...you've mocked them all. It's sick, at least to me, that you find it funny when horses sustain injury. Forgive me if I fail to find the humor in it, and also fail to see any redeeming quality in your character.

So he was awesome a grand total of once and that makes him "great"? We sure have lowered the bar.

He was a talented horse for sure but I have to question the term "great" when used to describe him.

apparently you missed all the talk about candy rides greatness after he beat MDO in his last start...


oh, and just saw that bellamy road is going to hurricane hall, a new operation in ky, and will stand for 10k. best of luck to him. afraid he's going to need it. but then, they all do.

Yes, in an unrestricted Pacific Classic and that MDO was a multiple graded stake winner at 3 and 4 that got made to look rather ordinary. Thats a whole lot different than beating scrappy t wouldnt you say?

Please document any one of those ignorant assertions ... with one of my actual posts.

yeah, a bit different. of course scrappy finished second that year in the preakness too.....

and volponi beat mdo....so did sarava. he was rather ordinary IMO.

I dont think MDO was "great" by any means but he was certainly a more accomplished horse than...Bellamy Road. And although he did lose to sarava and volponi he managed to win a few nice races along the way including the Donn and the travers.

MDO was a good horse and a monster at 9F.

yeah, true...just wish bellamy had been handled more ably. hate to see any horse not be able to show his stuff due to ineptitude. and we're supposed to be the intelligent species...

Of course he can't be considered a great horse! He didn't race long enough or do enough. However, he was extremely talented. He was awesome more than once. Did you see some of his races prior to the Wood?

i would hardly classify any of those races as "awesome". Nothing earth shattering.

His Wood performance was certainly "earth-shattering".

I guess it depends on how easily you're awed ... or if you live on a earthquake fault.

Apparently you didn't see his Travers, which anyone with a true understanding of the game and circumstances knows:
It was not the trainers fault that he had to run there.
The horse was coming off an injury and a layoff and had FOUR breezes, none longer than 5f for his race preparation.
He lost to eventual BCC runner up Flower Alley who was razor sharp at the time.
He beat the rest of the field by a city block. Including Rooman Ruler who had just won the haskell and returned off that race to run RHT to a length.

I won't go into it again. If you follow the game and really know what you are seeing, his Travers will always remain one of the most incredible efforts of raw talent and guts that you will ever see on a racetrack.
If you don't follow the game and don't understand what you are seeing or anything about training and preparation as it relates to performance, then you don't get it and most likely never will.

No Rupert, she was referring to BR's races BEFORE the Wood. The Wood was one of the most dominant preps ive ever seen. But before that, he didnt do anything to numb the senses.

I appreciated the Travers effort for what it was. It was indeed a game effort and no one on this thread denied that the horse has talent. Was it mind blowing? Not from where i was sitting which was at the track. Why is it that when someone disagrees with your assessment suddenly they dont "get it"? Could someone possibly "get it" while disagreeing with you? Ponder that.

Another member of the "Horses are machines who should always run their best race with no regards to the circumstances" club. These folks can't be reasoned with or taught anything.

Perhaps you should look up his worktab for the mile and a quarter Travers against two very good and sharp horses at the time.
he had four slow breezes. I know what he had, I saw them all in person.
Horse wasn't really ready to run in anything except an allowance race.
What he did that day will always be appreciated by folks in the game.
After that Travers was over, the folks i watched it with, one a trainer and another an owner both screamed as I did, WHAT A FREAK!!!! And noone was talking about Flower Alley. I'm not gonna name drop about who i watched it with, doesnt really matter exactly who they are, but these were players who had no affiliation with either Bellamy or Nick. One of em flat out dislikes Nick to be honest.
But after the race noone I was with could believe what he had done. Which was to set a very fast pressured pace in a mile and a quarter race off a layoff with only 4 slow breezes. And he actually fought back at Flower when passed and galloped out ahead of him immediately after the wire. It was something i will never forget, seeing him take off after Flower even after the wire and pass him.
If you couldnt appreciate that effort and its greatness, then you won't ever be able to appreciate any effort in its full perspective.

I'll take the consensus of three guys who have either trained or owned grade one horses over yours. With mine thrown in for good measure. The day I value your opinion over these guys is the day i take up tiddly winks.

since when is the Travers run BEFORE the Wood? LOL

You mean the fastest triple crown prep race in HISTORY on the sheets? nah, nothing earth shattering about that. LOL!!!

Since when does it matter?
Rule number 1) When folks resort to semantics about minor details, it means that they have no real basis to defend their standpoint.
:)

Can you ****ing READ?

Yeah can you?

It doesnt appear to be the case. Anyone that followed the thread and wasnt just looking to be an ******* could comprehend what i typed.

Kentuckyrosesinmay asked if i had seen any of BR's races BEFORE the Wood. I said yes and none of them were earth shattering. Then i stated that the Wood was the most dominating prep i had ever seen.

They must give GED's out easy these days.

the attacks on the talent of bellamy road are ridiculous. he was one of the most talented horses in the last few years. i would equate him with terrell davis of the broncos. hall of fame talent that never got to hang around long enough.

Maybe not for you, but I thought some of his previous performances were awesome. He just didn't do them in the national spotlight.

Revolution I believe that we have found common ground about something.

For the record, i never attacked his talent. Just questioned the term "great" being assigned to him thats all. The horse is obviously very talented.

My Rule #1 ...

What a horse does in actual races is all that really counts; "woulda/coulda/shoulda" doesn't count for squat.

probably because it is impossible to say he was not talented. he is often attacked based on his mediocre pedigree. if he was a storm cat nobody would question his talent. the fact that he is a FL bred also is a reason people like to knock him. talent is talent though. you can not argue with it.

My God, BB, if we stick to horses we generally see eye to eye.

Everyone in the business thought BM's Travers performance was awesome under the circumstances. Everyone I talked to thought that race vaildated what a good horse he was.

Everyting you said is correct. He had been off for a while, he only had a few works, there's no way he was ready to go the distance, he set fast fractions and not only that he was still injured. He had all those things going agaisnt him yet he still ran a good 2nd to a good horse in Flower Alley.

It was an awesome perfomance under the circumstances.

exactly, but two races in the wood and travers are efforts that only a great horse is capable of. shug thought he was one of the best horses in years and obviously he had nothing to do with him.

I know great when I see it. And believe me, if anyone asked me about great performances by horses, Bellamy's Travers is in the top 3. That one was one that raised goosebumps.
Of course you need a knowledge of the circumstances to understand that.

Top 3 in the history of the travers you mean?

No, I mean what I said, ever.
Someday when you understand training, if you ever do, you will realize that what he did was the equivalent of a tennis player who hadnt played a match in 4 months, and had only hit balls 4 times, push the eventual winner of Wimbledon to 5 sets in the finals.

There has to be some sort of standard for evaluating quality and/or greatness in race horses. This was discussed extensively on a thread a few weeks ago.

If we dwell on the hypothetical ... we'll get nowhere.

Hoist The Flag may have been the greatest race horse in the history of the world ... may have been ... but he wasn't. He won two stakes races as a 2YO ... and one as a 3YO ... not enough to reach any sort of threshhold.

Stick to what they actually do in races ... and never mind how good they looked walking around the shedrow.

I guess then what it comes down to how you define "great". For me, it takes more than two efforts in restricted races. Its obvious he had the talent to be a great horse. The Wood was, again, the most dominating prep ive ever seen.

For me, it takes more than just two races. For me, they have to beat the best around and do it consistently.

BB,
you are way off base here. His Wood and travers were not theoretical. I watched one on tv, and saw the other one live. I'm quite sure they happened. How many times do you have to see great before you know a horse is great.
Ask anyone who ever saw landaluce run if she was great.

Well, I'll keep that in mind. And that performance wouldnt make my top three. It just wouldnt.