Actually from good sources heard that he has had a very rough winter there in Dubai. And im not referring to the "spiked" temp weeks before the DWC. Anyway, yeah kind of expect the trash talk of these exceptional race horses when they finally do run a bad one.

Care to elaborate on a "rough winter?"...Just didn't settle back in to desert life?

I would love to see what this horse could do on the turf also, should take to it well

Hawthorne fall. After you claim him and run him 20 times at Arlington in Starter Allowances.

Yes I'd like to thank them for buying the competition and retiring them accordingly so their favorite horses can dominate.


Woo hoo go Team Dubai.

So you like to watch horses fornicate or run?

I'm a nomad at heart so I prefer watching horses fornicate.

Well it's no secret around here that he's never been the soundest of horses. And he just had more than usual of his aces and pains this winter. So they had to do a little "doctoring up", and well he just wasn't himself. Maybe the connections got caught up in the pressure of running him before the home crowd on their biggest night. Maybe they thought he was so good that he could overcome it. Whatever the case, he is an exceptional horse. You can't fault a horse for his ailments. Only the connections that run them when they are not 100%

What the hell makes him overrated? It can't possibly be all his wins, so it has to be his one loss, right?

What do I base what opinion on? That a one-length victory in one race doesn't make one horse definitively better than another? Do I really need to elaborate?

Okay, so you really don't know what overrated means.
Neither his wins nor his losses "make him overrated." In my opinion the quality of all his starts after his debut make him a very good horse (you are of course wrong to credit him with only "one loss" but I know you know that). His victories and his quality second place finish in the BCC meant that Bernardini was a very talented and accomplished horse. I don't see anyone denying that in this thread. We aren't avance here.
What makes him overrated is the fact that a lot of folks took those impressive performances and got carried away with them by saying he was one of the all-time greats. People don't seem to be doing that for Invasor even though he has a very impressive record and despite the fact that - in their one meeting - Invasor defeated Bernardini.
That is why I say Invasor is underrated and Bernardini is/was overrated. It has more to do with how people respond to these horses' performances than the performances themselves.
See what I mean?

You concluded that the horse that lost was better than the horse that won. Obviously you are going by something other than that one loss.
So yes, elaborate. How do you come to that conclusion?

Well this is certainly true. But by almost any measure in which horses could be evaluated, Invasor has a better career than Bernardini. Invasor has won more races, more stakes races, more money, won the only head-to-head matchup, and he has less losses (1) than Bernardini (2).
That doesn't mean Bernardini wasn't good. It just means that Invasor is very good.

I don't think he can. Is there any criteria to examine which wolud logically lead to the conclusion that Bernardini was better? There may be....but I can't think of any.

No. You can't read. I said that that race doesn't make Invasor definitively better then Bernardini. I didn't say Bernardini was definitively better than Invasor. I said they're both in my top five, and I didn't say in what order.

Then I would refer you to the Bernardini bashers that were calling him a mediocre 3-year-old that just beat up on bad competition all year long. I guess that would make him underrated. It wasn't all Bernardini fans, believe it or not. These are the same people that are now praising Invasor as the second coming. I don't think you can have it both ways.

At this point you shouldn't really be struggling trying to decide which horse is better. Its a no-brainer.

Thanks for telling me how I should be judging horses. I forgot that Bernardini's gotten smoked in every race since the Breeders' Cup.

i wonder if they should ship him back to the states for a new years campaigning. it laid him up for months when they brought him here last year, and after taking him home, he missed his dwc prep, and then bombed yesterday. i don't think it's much of a stretch to say this guy doesn't like to travel.

ateamstupid,
I really am not trying to pick a fight with you.....but are you going to address any of these points or not?

And that is the crux of the whole matter. He is not running. Invasor is. And he is traveling and showing a great deal of ability to adapt off layoffs and he just does not tire out. Pretty incredible animal. Glad to be watching him and wish Bernardini, Smarty Jones, Barbaro, were all still running. But they are not.

So I guess Candy Ride is a top 5 horse for beating, not losing, to a top notch horse like Megs.

of course it is. don't you know, bernardini was the greatest of all-time!!
bernardini could have beaten citation in a match race at 10 furlongs......jogged a lap to rest up.......then defeated secretariat in a match race at 10 furlongs...........then done 3 back flips..........then beaten affirmed in a match race at 10furlongs........while running backwards.
don't try to fight it anymore dude.......he was the greatest.

Do you ever post about anything else?

Yes occasionally he'll post about global warming....And that's it.

If you're arguing that Invasor has accomplished more on the track, I obviously can't refute that. But I don't think more money and more stakes races makes him better, considering that Invasor has the benefit of having been in more races.

I've seen a lot of VERY good horses run VERY bad races before---in some cases, often due to a breathing related issue, these horses will find their old form fast. A few examples would be Afleet Alex getting slaughtered behind Greater Good in the Rebel Stakes. Skip Away was beaten about 30 lengths in an allowance race during his 3-year-old season. Holy Bull was beaten about 25 lengths in his start prior to the Florida Derby.

Hopefully, Discreet Cat had a problem he can come back from. He had a massive early speed advantage over that field---and showed no speed at all. Seeing him racing in last pace behind that slow pace---was as shocking as it would be to watch a horse like the Strike the Gold or Borrego on the early lead in the Breeders Cup Sprint.

The fact that he never made a move at any stage suggested something was wrong. My gut feeling is there's more to it than what's being reported on godolphin's website...I'm not so sure he'll ever race again.

Perhaps a match race with Thor's Echo might be in store.

Godolphin started 11 horses on World Cup day---not a single one managed to hit the board. And coming into World Cup day, they had struggled greatly all year long. At least they haven't yet resorted to Ian Jory's claims after last years World Cup day. When he insisted his two starters in the UAE Derby, whom both ran well below form, had been drugged. He claimed to have proof with the post race test results.

But despite being in more races....he has lost fewer races.
I just think that while both horses are/were accomplished, it only seems logical to say that at this point Invasor has established himself as the better overall animal.

Would you be saying that if Bernardini had beaten Invasor in the Classic?

i think had bernardini won the race that most would say he was better. only having one race to go by, it's not much of a study. but then, multiple face-offs don't mean much either. sunday silence won 3 of 4 meetings with easy goer, but there are still plenty of people who will say easy goer was the better horse.

but winning the one time two horses face each other doesn't mean much. does anyone REALLY think seabiscuit was a better horse than war admiral?? i don't-he just managed to win that day. swaps beat nashua in the derby, and then nashua won a match race-so who's better?

i can see where many would come to the conclusion that invasor is 'better' than bernardini-but i can see why that would cause disagreement as well.

as for those who say bernardini was 'overrated'-in the sense that he didn't accomplish some of the more outlandish things some said he would-then yes, you could say that-but losing a race by one length doesn't make a very good horse suddenly very bad! considering who bernardini lost to, i don't see that his reputation should suffer for that loss. one length is NOT the difference between very good, and a nag.

As most know, I thought Bernardini was very hyped. We heard things like best since Slew and even on this board people were predicting 1:58 and such for the BCC. He's a damn nice horse but . . . not an Invasor.

Play the tape -- Bernardini only lost by 1 but he had a dream trip and Invasor had a much tougher trip. When Invasor cleared and only had Bernardini ahead of him it was obvious that he could run by Bernardini with ease and he did. Invasor has had a number of trough trips and still wins. If they ran today Invasor would beat him again even more easily.

Invasor deserves all the credit in the world. He's done more than any horse in a very long time. Won on 3 different continents. Doesn't need the drugs. Went everywhere and won everywhere. And he looks like he's still improving. He's still a young horse.

Maybe Argentina will become more recognized for producing competitive horses. Asiatic Boy could be another Invasor.

ToDko and I have gone back and forth on many issues on this and another board. But this one topic we are in full agreement. Invasor gave me chills on Saturday. He is by far the best horse we have seen since Cigar and maybe even better. Many have called Cigar a super horse, I truly believe that Invasor is a Superhorse, incredible what he has accomplised.

Well put and I completely agree. To me the Classic showed that there is no doubt about Invasor's superiority due to the ease that he ran down Bernardini after coming terribly wide off the turn. You have given a very accurate accounting of how the race was won. Invasor had plenty left at the finish. Premium Tap put up a stronger stretch challenge this time in Dubai, but when it came down to it Invasor just broke him like he always does. Invasor finishes his races more strongly than any in recent memory. What first clued me in to his ability was the Bris pace numbers, which I use all the time. Since I've been using Bris I have yet to see a horse run at such a high sustained pace at Classic distance, even when encountering trouble!

Believe it or not there are still people that didn't notice any of this and are holding on to the concept that it is still not definitive who the better horse is.

Asiatic Boy is another one that impresses every time and could be another monster. I am looking forward to seeing him run over here.

I'd love to know what he could do in the Derby. Someday they should find a way to handicap the Southern Hemisphere 3.5yo's such that they can run in the American Classics.

And if you watch Invasor after the race, I have it taped, he is not even blowing that hard. And he was pushed by Premium Tap. OFF lasix. This horse has got an absolutely incredible cardio-vascular system. When he dies, hopefully long from now, I want an autopsy. I want a look at those lungs and heart.

I'm just happy to see good, older horses still racing instead of being retired. :)

Believe it or not, there are still people who take one race and use it to determine definitively who's better than who. As if he knows for a fact that Bernardini wouldn't have done the same things in the Donn and Dubai World Cup that Invasor did.

Zeigler put it best, so I'm not even going to waste my time with this guy anymore.

You're the only one using one race. I am looking at the entire careers of both horses. You are talking about what if's. I am only looking at what we know. Saying "what if Bernardini did this or that" is a futile exercise. We only know what he did. Even if he did improve, so has Invasor so its not likely that there would be any difference in the outcome if they were to have squared off again. Do you really see any chinks in Invasors armor that Bernardini could exploit and take advantage of?

I know that I'm futilely wasting my time on this with you, but I just keep at it because I know you are looking at it with too much emotion and its clouding your judgement. Not a good thing for handicapping.

Pgn,
The heart thing was a complete bust as idea of ability. After Sec's autopsy people were thinking there was a correlation when there isn't. People started giving cardiograms to 2 year olds and it was a ticket to the poor house as they ran like nothing.

big heart doesn't necessarily mean fast legs--it just means he or she has a big heart!
now fast horse + big heart--that = secretariat.

It is meaningless. Means nothing....In fact an enlarged heart is often a negative in athletic ability for humans and other animals.

so all the bs about that factor is just bs? people just trying to come up with a simple solution to the problem of what horses will run faster?