Breeders' Cup Fan Fantasy: The Sprint
 

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http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/hor...emy&id=3607040

Oy vay..

Once you vote you get to see the current (laughable) results...

Has Kona Gold, (who took 4 tries to get it right and by a nostril at that), and paved Gulfstream highway Sprint winner Artax leading Precisionist... the hands down, obvious top choice...

Obviously I agree that Precisionist was probably the best overall winner of the Sprint in history but I think you need to peruse Artax's pps from that year. He was a completely deserving winner of the Sprint and had a fabulous year to back it up.

Precisionist would clearly be the best overall horse of the 8 - however - I'd have a big problem voting for him in something like this.

He won the Breeders Cup Sprint in '85 - his prior sprint race was a 6th place finish - albeit beaten just 3.25 lengths in the Potrero Grande. Just four weeks after his BC Sprint win - he was 4th in a Grade 3 Stake going 6 furlongs at 2/5 odds.

He was off the board in 6 of his 10 lifetime stake sprint races.

If you are talking best individual performance ever in a Breeders Cup Sprint win - I think it's pretty clear that Artax would be the winner.

If you are talking best overall Breeders Cup Sprint resume - Kona Gold is the right horse. He ran in the glory years of the race - when the sprint division was just loaded.

I haven't paid much attention to these things - so I'm not sure if they're looking for the best overall horse, or best winning performance in the race, or best overall collection of races in the history of the race. You have a different cut and dry winner in all three I think.

Merits of the horses aside, it's gonna' really hurt Mr. White's placement in the competition if his chance to make the first draft doesn't win this category for him. Of course, it's not about winning....

Fair enough.. Fact is I never warmed to Artax at any point, and find the main track winners of the '99 GP Cup particularly difficult to assign bona fides.

Plus, once he came east in '99, I remember him being unable to beat a bunch of good sprinters all year.. Intidab in the A Phenomenon I think. Several including Affirmed Success in the Forego.. I think Kelly Kip beat him at Belmont in the spring (or maybe AQU in April? etc.. (I suppose he wins the Maryland BC Sprint H. on Preakness Day if not for the nutbar that took the swing at him.. :D )

He lost that race at the start. He might have finished 2nd instead of 5th if the drunk guy didn't run on the track to swing at him - but Yes It's True wasn't losing.

Artax lost 6 in a row that year - but his figures were outstanding even in a few of those defeats - and very high in his victorys. I believe his half length win the in the Sprint over KG got a 123 Beyer.

...and that's only about the 10th most bizarre thing I've seen at Pimlico on Preakness Day :D :D

By the way, he DESTROYED the fields in the Vosburgh and Forest Hills at Belmont prepping for the BC...

Artax is a difficult one for me to judge. When he was on his game, he was incredible. Even when he lost some of the races he lost, he ran very well. But the thing that always will bother me about him is that even in that championship year, he lost more than he won. When I think of champions and dominating performers, it's hard for me to go with a horse that loses more than he wins. His Sprint may have been the single best of all of the sprints though but I don't think it's a clear best. I thought Cherokee Run's race was huge in beating a returning champ in Cardmania and a super filly in Soviet Problem. And what about Very Subtle completely dominating the race as a 3yo filly? I think I'd go with Cherokee Run's as the best win, Precisionist as the best horse to win the race and Artax as the best sprinter when he ran his best race. One that I thought was underrated and didn't get selected was Reraise. I never have thought he got the credit he's deserved.

Fair enough ...


Keep in mind that prior to his BC Sprint win, Cherokee Run was beaten in 6 of his last 7 starts - all around one-turn and five of which as the post time favorite.

There is simply no way Cherokee Run's win was as good as Artax's either.

I believe CR got something like a 110 Beyer - compared to the 123 for Artax.

Artax broke Mr. Prospector's long standing track record and defeated two of the best sprinters of the 90's in Kona Gold and Big Jag.

Soviet Problem was a super No Cal filly and was beaten only a head - and Cardmania was a 22/1 shot 3rd place finisher - who hadn't won a race in ten months prior to that BC Sprint - and was defeated in each of his 7 starts following that race before retiring.

Gulch beat a really good field in 89 including Precisionist, Afleet, Very Subtle, Olympic Prospect, Ruhlman and Mining. Call me crazy but i would take him any day of the week over Kona Gold. For him not be in the top 8 is stupid.

Equaled not broke. The fastest 6 furlongs in GP history was Elusive Quality though he doesnt officially hold the track rcord.

I'd take Gulch as top BC winning sprinter as well.

Okay, dont throw any tomatoes at me.

What do you experts think about Smile?

I agree that he should have been one of the 8 drafted.

As for the win - It was in the mud - the time was moderate with a 49 2/5 final half - and Gulch had been defeated in each of his last five.

Kona Gold simply has to rate as a better sprinter. Gulch was 18 out of it in the Derby and 16 out of it in the Belmont. I think he, Dancing Spree, and Precisionist were all horses who would have been much more likely to start in a BC Dirt Mile than a BC Sprint if such a race was around in their day.

Gulch was a tremendous horse.

However, if Afleet had just a bad jockey, like say Barrington Harvey, instead of the guy who rode him, he would have won that BC Sprint and the Met Mile earlier in the year.

80's racing was just before my time but...

Smile has a win and a 2nd to Precisionist in his two attempts in the race - but otherwise was not a dominant sprinter.

The year Precisionist won and he was 2nd - he was off the board at 1/2 in the Vosburgh two weeks later. Precisionist was off the board at 2/5 four weeks later out West. Both horses finished behind Pancho Villa (2nd in the Vosburgh and won the National Sprint Champ at HP)

From looking at past performances, speed figures, and watching videos of races - I would have to say the two best sprinters of the 1980's were Phone Trick and Groovy.

PT never ran in the BC - and Groovy was beaten twice in the BC Sprint as an odds on favorite.

Maybe because I was biased towards Soviet Problem, I am giving Cherokee Run more credit than he deserves. However, when analyzing a single performance, I don't think what they had done in their previous few races has much meaning. Cherokee Run may have lost 6 of his last 7 going in and Gulch may have lost his last five going in and been well back in the Derby but that doesn't have anything to do with how he ran in the BC. And I think that in order to be completely fair about Gulch, you have to mention that in those last five loses were races in the Whitney (second to Personal Ensign), Iselin (third to Alysheba and Bet Twice), and Californian (second to Cutlass Reality). When he was sprinting, he was pretty damn good all year long, winning the Met Mile, Carter (1:20 2/5) and Portrero Grande (1:15) along with seconds in the Tom Fool and Vosburgh.

You guys went off on Honour And Glory yesterday. Visually, Lit De Justice ran like a monster at Woodbine.

Isn't all this completely contradictory to why you just knocked Artax and his BC win?

Cherokee Run was the post time favorite in the BC Sprint despite having lost six of his last seven - which can sometimes be telling about how the form of his opposition might have looked coming into the race.

Gulch was obviously losing in tough spots and running well...but if you want to knock Artax for losing - it's hard not to hold CR and Gulch to the same standard.

Gulch still won over a very fluky off track on a day when many Lukas horses were running big. Winning Colors - who was beaten 15 lengths in her prior start - almost upset Personal Ensign. Is It True upset the seemingly invincible Easy Goer. I believe Lukas also swept the Juve Fillies that year - and had a 2nd with Steinlan at 37/1 in the Mile.

How do you figure? I said that Artax' win may have been the single best performance and that when he was on his game, he may have been the best sprinter of them all but that when it came to evaluating his overall record, having so many losses is hard for me to overlook. Evaluating his overall record has nothing to do with evaluating his BC race which was brilliant. Same with Gulch.

The Sprint seems to favor off-the-pace types most years, and I think the public is wise to it (its not hard when there's 3 or 4 confirmed frontrunners lining up against each other), hence Cherokee Run being favored. I remember thinking he was gonna be a huge price that day.

Its funny, cuz the Mile is kind of quirky nowadays, tending to favor the bridesmaid-type horses that have been showing up, but not necessarily winning all year long (eg Kip Deville, Singletary, Artie Schiller, Domedriver, etc).

There was nothing fluky about it. This was the same Winning Colors that had won the Derby, ran even better in the Preakness and was within less than a length of Personal Ensign in the Maskette. Easy Goer's problem wasn't with Is It True running huge it was with the track, which he proved again in the Derby. Open Mind validated her performance with a 3yo championship the next year and Steinlen was overlooked in the betting because his record wasn't as good as it could have been because they had been racing him longer but he had two sharp mile wins that year and I think he confirmed it wasn't a fluke by winning the race the next year.

My mistake. I coulda sworn you said that Cherokee Run's BC Sprint was the best performance and were overlooking all of his losses.

No. I said that I thought his was the best performance in a Sprint win but never said he was the best sprinter overall. And I did return to admit that because of my bias towards Soviet Problem, I probably am overrating CR's win. I think that being as objective as I can, I'd probably say either Artax or Very Subtle had the single most impressive performance in the Sprint with Kona Gold right behind them.

BCS favorites over the last few years...

2007 Midnight Lute (closer)
2006 Henny Hughes (stalker)
2005 Lost in the Fog (frontrunner)
2004 Midas Eyes (closer)
2003 Aldebaran (closer)
2002 Orientate (stalker, but versatile)

You might be on to something there.

Look at the top 3 finishers every year, too, to show how the race often sets up. You have a BC Classic winner (Black Tie Affair), a BC Classic runner up (Pleasant Tap), a BC Classic favorite (Dispersal), a Champagne winner (Grand Slam), a BC Juvenile winner (Gilded Time), and milers like Kela, Hesabull, Crafty CT, Honour And Glory, and Lion Tamer all hitting the board. That's not including actual winners like Cherokee Run (2nd in the Preakness), Dancing Spree (Suburban winner), Silver Train, Orientate, Gulch, Smile, and Precisionist all capable up to at least a mile, often further.

I was going to say that as well.

In fact, hands down, when Lit de Justice ran his race, there are only a handful of sprinters ever that could beat him. He would beat any of these horses listed in this fantasy contest. If he hadn't been such a massive head case and been ridden by such an impatient and unthinking ******, he'd be remembered as one of the all time great sprinters ever.

If you can see some of his Santa Anita races, you'll see some of the most breathtaking moves a horse can make.

By the way, Royal Heroine would have smoked Da Hoss.

I was bummed when he was made part of the mutual field coming off something like a 13th place finish in the Vosburgh (an obvious throwout) in the '95 Sprint. Thought I'd get 30-1. Instead he only went off at 8-1.

Moot point, though. He ran 3rd to Desert Stormer, also part of the mutual field.

Actually, I guess I should be thankful he was part of the mutual field.

Guess who was last in the Sprint that year? Hint: It wasn't Royal Heroine...

I think people are realizing that Honour and Glory was a much better racehorse, in hindsight, than he generally was recognized to be back when he raced. It's a shame he was trained by who he was.

Here is Lit De Justice in the El Conejo. Not his most impressive race, but worth seeing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0q0qp_hKjg

Da Hoss? I seem to remember something like that, and thinking what was that horse in this race for.

Lakota Brave, one of the best, unheralded sprinters out west in the '90s. He was 5th in Lit De Justice's BC Sprint.

He was Headley's prototype for Kona Gold.

Yep. He had been running on turf, but either early at 3 or late as a 2yo, he ran 1:07 1/5 for 6f in a race at Turf Paradise. His first loss might have been the Gotham, prior to which he had been sprinting.

Yep. Next out he was 3rd to Labeeb in the Hollywood Derby (check out the Angels thread...wink).

Who knows, if the Mad Genius wasn't so stupid, maybe he would have won 3 BC Miles...