Barbaro 3yr old of the year
 

in trying to keep my mind of past events, I decided to analyze best 3 yr old of the year. Bernardini had a stellar year, but im afraid didnt win when it counted to outright take the 3yr old title from Barbaro. Here's hoping Barbaro takes this down, and makes a full recovery to live.

Top 3 yr olds

1.Barbaro
2.Bernardini/Showing UP

You simply cannot give the eclipse to anyone but Bernadini. He won a classic race, the Travers, and beat elders in the JCGC.
Many people, myself included, will always believe that Barbaro was definitely the more talented of the two and what he may have gone on to do, well all we will ever be able to do is speculate.
I will always think we got robbed of seeing a true great. The ease with which he won the Derby will always be the defining moment of the year to me.
But Bernadini can't be penalized for sympathy and might have beens. He stayed sound and accomplished what a three year old needs to accomplish to be a champion. You simply can't deny a horse who won the Preakness, Travers, and JCGC.

Completely agree. (and that's despite the fact that I took Barbaro over Bernardini in the matchup bet on the Eclipse winner (at Pinnacle) before the Travers!)

--Dunbar

Let me start by saying that I am NOT a Bernardini fan and I am a Barbaro fan. One of my best friends worked for Matz for most of this year so I have contacts with in his camp.

However, Bernardini gets the nod. However good Barbaro might have been, his injury precluded him from showing it. (In fact it may be sacriledge to say it but I think Bernardini was going to win the Preakness even if Barbaro didn't get hurt.)
In this era, winning the Withers, the Preakness, the Jim Dandy, the Travers, the Gold Cup and then running second to the likley HOY in the Classic is more than enough to get the award. I watched the Gold Cup with a group of Barbaro's connection and biggest supporters and even they had to concede that Bern had done enough to merit the honor.

For Eclipse voters to vote based on "what might have been" is absurd. Should they have voted Easy Goer over Sunday Silence because "had he had better ankles, he'd have beaten SS?" No.

How many times is this going to come up?

We all love Barbaro and are sympathetic to his plight.

However there is no way he can win an award for best three year old.

I think Bernardini rightfully deserves that honor. With the year he had being capped by a solid second against older in the biggest race of the year?
No question in my mind.

Honorable mentions also to Discreet Cat and Showing Up as well.

I agree completely... Bernardini deserves to be 3 year old of the year. We'll never know what Barbaro might have accomplished, but you can't take away what Bernardini did because of sympathy for what might have been.

I think Stevie Wonderboy is clearly the deserving winner. I mean, come one, the way he won that BC juvenile, over the last place finisher in the next BC Sprint, was awesome. He would definitely have been the champ this year if he didn't get hurt.

well, in that case, then it should really go to what a song.

Absolutely. In the same vein that The Green Monkey is CLEARLY this year's 2YO champ.

Here I go saying something I should not but the hell with it.

If I was to go and try to be the best lets say, oh, Quarterback in College Football and was great until I got hurt in the middle of the season -

Would I be up for the Heisman? Beuler? Beuler?

Let Barbaro go! Horse got hurt, it sucks, looks like he will be ok, and reruns of Everyone Loves Raymond still come on at all hours of the day and night! :D

Hey Jerry your dog still puking? How is the gambling thing for ya? Still talkin.

Barbaro is a great horse that retired undefeated. There's not a thing wrong with him earning 3 Yr Old Champion.

no, it wasn't. horses with a lot of talent are lost before you ever get to see it. or before you get to see enough of it. what a song was one of those..

and the gate crew had NOTHING to do with barbaros injury. why is this still being mentioned as part of the story??

Whatever happened to being consistent and around all year battling the best? It is not Barbaro's fault that he got hurt but my God when does it stop? Dini battled all year, stayed healthy and yet got beat by Invasor. Barbaro battled in the Spring, won the Derby but got hurt. Shiat happens, HoY goes to some horse other then Barbaro and please don't feel sorry for the connections when they don't win HoY cause they have the Derby in their back pocket do they not? Move on.

Curt,
bernadini ABSOLUTELY earned this award. No doubt.
But I think we are far enough removed from the BCC for the folks who drank the Kool Aid on bernadini to realize that they had been had.
I never said Bern wasn't very good, because any idiot could see what he was, which was exactly that.
He can and should win this award by a landslide.
I think some folks are lashing out against dini due to being embarassed over wearing the purple sneakers and buying the hype about all time great bs.
But hop over to the other thread where Hoily Bull, Cigar, easy Goer, Sunday Silence, Alysheba, Skip Away, Formal Gold, etc are being discussed, guy was even cool enough to post the beyer Figs for those horses.
You'll see that he couldn't have warmed those horses up.

i'd rate his fla derby right up there with the Cigar mile as one of the greatest races of the year.

you're right twomins....barbaro wasn't able to compete all year. bernardini, unlike in some years past, was able to compete, and well at that, all year. a season of wins bookended by his only two losses. he did plenty enough to get the nod.
was barbaro better? we'll never, ever know. we might think so, or not. but we won't know.

had bernie not been so consistent all year, than yes, the argument could be made for barbaro. he's a tough bastard, game as the year is long, his survival shows that.
i'd rather see a horse who did what bernie did win, than a horse who only runs part of the year...can't help but wonder if some from years past would have started again had another 3 yo started putting a streak of wins together and could challenge an early part of the year star.

Who can possibly argue with that?

The second place finisher in the Florida Derby, Sharp Humor ( who lost by a head or neck ), also ran in the Cigar Mile.

I'm going to hop on the A Train out to Aqueduct now and catch him finishing.

take your time...no hurry.:p

Sharp Humor reinjured his knee after opening up a 4 length lead in the Cigar.

well, hate to hear a horse got hurt....but it's hard enough to know if a horse got injured during, or after a race--yet you know that it happened after he opened up this lead?

had to...he slowed which is not SH...

he won four of ten. if he was such a freakishly fast horse, you'd think he'd have won more of them. he slowed more often than not i guess...

my top three 3yo:

1) barbaro
2) showing up
3) that other horse

Hate to hear this too. Did I miss this information yesterday?

didn't pay attention to when bloodhorse first showed the story....today i guess. summerly also retired.

I loved Barbaro, and if I were voting I probably would give him the sentimental vote. But reason and rational thinking should rule; Bernardini accomplished enough to be considered the 3 year old of the year.

bernardini ended the year with more graded wins than barbaro. more grade ones. won the travers over bluegrass cat, who was second to barbaro in the preakness. altho not a stellar field, bernie won the jcgc over older, a sure prerequisite to winning top 3 yo. than he ran second to only invasor in the bcc. he absolutely deserves the top 3 yo award for '06. has nothing to do with who's better. that question is unanswerable.

thankfully, barbaro is still around to generate all this talk. they have an update on him today, he's doing wonderfully, a much greater reward than any eclipse. i see a special eclipse for him and his owners in january. sports illustrated voted his vet (and a sexy beast:D ) as their man of the year.

as for discussion of the gate crew, it was all over this joint after the preakness.. perhaps those who brought it up will tell you who they were. i know you weren't around here at that time.

barbaro update:

http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/tod...68032&subsec=1

what is the time thing you're talking about?
eclipses are in january, always have been. it's a done deal anyway, invasor gets hoy and top older.

as for the laminitis, i think they sound pretty optimistic. especially considering when they first detected it, they gave barbaro a 5% chance.

meras, we need to have a meeting of the Chicago chapter of Derbytrail at this bar with the internet access.

you can organize this?

ok, i'm lost.

do you really want to type on a keyboard in a BAR?! lol

lapdances with the laptops....

gotcha.
and it's bear, unless you're a dancer, and then it's bare.