well, i'd always praise perfection over almost perfect, so secretariat would be third of the three.

Note that I haven't really offered my own opinions on this subject. There's more than one question at hand, really.

"Best (whatever)" is translated by different people as "Most talented" or "Most dominant" but the truth is, that's not always the same thing. A truly talented horse will dominate the opposition, but dominating opposition does not necessarily equate to extremely high talent. In fact, the less talented the opposition, the less talented you need to be to dominate it.

Therefore, looking at traditional measures of dominance (win record, winning margins, etc) is a start, not the end, of answering the question. If that's all it were, one could say, for example, that since Hindoo won 19 straight races at 3 in 1881 (counting a walkover), he must be the best US 3YO ever. Or that by beating one rival by whatever extreme margin that it really was, Man o' War proved in the Lawrence Realization that he was the best US 3YO ever. Of course these were both pretty good 3YOs, but IMHO as a racing observer and historian, that's barely the beginning of answering the question of "who was the best US 3YO?"

A lot of people seem to have real trouble dealing with the truth that winning many races or winning races by large margins is, in itself, not proof of greatness. All it is is proof that said horse is better than what walked into the gate next to him. Beating them a lot means that he's consistently better than these; winning by a lot means that he's much better than these. But there's a huge question being begged that as far as I'm concerned means as much as, if not more, than merely noting that this horse is better than the opposition and that is, how good IS the opposition?

Horse racing is inherently subjective, every race affected by countless variables, so there's never going to be answers that are 100 percent definitive, 100 percent provable, 100 percent reproducible - that is, answers that will satisfy the scientist in me. And that's why I shy away from declaring "best evers" and creating "top x" lists, because - honestly - the moment you rank two horses that didn't run against each other a number of times, what you're ranking is your opinion, not the relative talent of the horses.

That's not to say that it's not worth wondering and debating "best evers." Beyond the gambling aspect, that's one of the great purposes of horse racing - to experience horses so good that they must find their comparison in history, not in flesh-and-blood rivals. But I have to point out that if you're going to do that with any sort of validity, as soon as you think about what a horse accomplished, you have to do what you can to put it in perspective by asking yourself what it was accomplished against. How good was the opposition? What did they win, and against whom? When did they do it? Did a given rival horse put forth a credible effort on the meeting in question? When you find a horse competing against rivals who themselves won many comparable races over similar conditions in a reasonably close time frame and which offered a representative effort on the day they met, it changes everything. A narrow margin against high-class, in-form opposition means a lot more, IMHO, than a large winning margin against vastly inferior rivals. A few decent losses against really good rivals makes for a better race record than one with virtually no defeats compiled against utter nonentities.

That's the view I choose to take. I admit that I have exacting standards, and my standards, based upon horses doing enough to actually have worthwhile established form, are increasingly archaic, but this is where I stand.

All excellent points. For some reason, I think that horses who face the "inferior" or crap opposition (alledgedly!) get a bad rap as the old argument goes...the horse can't control who goes into the starting gate against him/her. And any horse that goes undefeated for a somewhat extended period be it Seattle Slew, Smarty Jones, Favorite Trick, Barbaro, will face that same argument of whom did they beat. And there is certainly legitimacy to it without question.

True...but measuring "who did they beat" with 2 year olds is even harder since so much changes between 2-3 (case in point of course was Favorite Trick). Anytime I print my list of "greatest ever" I get arguments on both my #1's...Secretariat because he did lose races, Kincsem cause she won 54 in a row but at a time when judging her competion is hard. Secretariat gets the ranking because I saw with my own eyes something I've never seen close to equaled, Kincsem cause...well, lots of reasons...54-54 lifetime, traveled all over Europe at a time when travel was extremely difficult, gave huge weight to the "best" male horses in Europe at the time, carried as much as 168 pounds over a distance...still, arguments can always be made! MOW's 100 length win in the Lawrence Realization was against one horse...a cheap horse named Hoodwink who was probably claiming level and entered as a favor to avoid the walkover so how can anyone even consider that win?

I pulled out the "Champions" book to look at Devil's Bag past performances...DAMN:eek: I remember him as being good, but not THAT good. Dominant in every start in very fast times.

However, Ruffian was even better on paper than Bag or Secretariat. The times were faster, and the margins were wider.

I'm rather surprised that in discussing top 2yos that the name of Buckpasser hasn't come up. Won 9 of 11, including the Champagne and Hopeful, lost the Futurity when forced to run closer to the pace than he liked.

There have been two British-raced superwinners at 2 in the last few decades. Timeless Times, 1988, by Timeless Moment-Lovely Hobo, by Noholme II, won 16 of 21 starts at 2 and was listed-placed; similarly, Provideo, 1982, Godswalk-Nadwa, by Tyrant, won 16 races at two from I think it was 18 starts and was a listed winner.

I think the horses who ran pre-1930 get massively overrated in these discussions.....

Colin, Man O' War, and horses back than were certainly great for their time, however, they can't be fairly compared with later 2-year-old's, and in my opinion, just don't belong.

I don't think Favorite Trick would have beaten Stevie Wonderboy if the two met in the Breeders Cup at age 2.

Thats impossible to say...the only thing we have to compare is times and since track condition and other factors constitute an incalculable variable, that's basically worthless as well! I've always believed great horse in the 1800's would be great horses today!

I personally believe that the great horses from the 1800's would get drowned against the better horses of more recent decades.

What people don't realize, is how microscopic foal crops were back at that time. For example, the largest foal crop ever (1986) was 35 times larger than the foal crop Man O' War came from.

In my opinion, the members of that esteemed group who voted Man O' War the #1 horse of the 1900's, ought to be mocked for it.

Buckpasser was the best 2yo that I ever saw. In some ways he was even better than Secretariat.

Mocking someone for their opinion is not the staple of an intelligent mind...I will make light of some opinions as do we all when they go beyond any sense of reality...ie: Zippy Chippy as the best horse of the 20th century, but MOW certainly has a claim to best horse...the fact that his connections repeatedly ducked Exterminator does give me pause but certainly intelligent folks can disagree. I say Secretariat and Kincsem were the best ever but if someone said it was Ribot, Colin, MOW, Native Dancer or a dozen others, I would debate but hardly mock them!

It is pretty sad that Man O' War had to duck a horse---when he was running in a day when less than 2K foals were born each year.

His big victory was earned in a match race, run in Canada, against a horse that entered the Kentucky Derby as a hapless maiden, and was only running for the purpose of setting a fast pace for his stablemate.

You could probably find better horses currently stabled on the grounds of Bay Meadows, than those that Man O' War was beating up on.

While he was no doubt the king of his crop, and ran fast times for his day, he never faced anything close to the kind of horse that he would have needed to beat convincingly, in order to make a justified claim to the title 'Greatest horse of the 1900's.'

You really seem to be in love with your stat on number of foals in a crop...I think your thinking is a bit simplistic...and wrong! True there were fewer foals per year but there were also fewer races, fewer tracks...the "hotbed" of racing was the east coast especially NY and MD, and there was sanity in the breeding shed. Today, breeding is about speed and producing precocious horses that often are retired before their 4th birthday. I submit that 100 well bred horses will be more competitive, particularly when forced to face each other than 1000 horses bred from unsound lines in a time when candidates for HOY can race constantly in grade one races and never face each other!

and to be fair...Exterminator wasn't just "a horse", he was one of the greats!

This whole thing will be easier to sort out in a few years when the Breeders' Cup adds a race for 2yo fillies going 5f on the turf. Then we will FINALLY know who the best of the best really is.

I think you are totally wrong in assuming that all of the handfull of horses bred back than were all "well bred."

If he couldn't beat the Best Pal that ran in 1921, I don't think he would have faired to well against the Best Pal who ran in the early 90's.

Buckpasser, Native Dancer, Secretariat. In that order.

that's an insane comparison....really! Onion beat Secretariat, Upset beat Man O War, there is more to making an argument than taking things out of context or using the "well so-and-so beat him therefore" argument. Look at Exterminator's overall record, not a race or two...he actually ran more than the sum of 4-5 top horses do today!