Winning Colors vs. Rags to Riches
 

When we look back in history, which brilliant mare will be better.....
and right now; did Winning Colors do more winning the Derby or Rags winning the Belmont. Let's hear the opinions.

Put me in the Winning Colors camp...

The jury is still out on Rags, would like to see what she can accomplish this year. Winning Colors' 4 year old campaign was generally a disappointment save for the '88 BC Distaff. Would have to give Winning Colors' Derby the nod over Rags' Belmont though.

Genuine Risk beats them both, in history and on the track

Winning Colors was a 3YO in 1988.

However, for whatever it's worth, Winning Colors dwarfs Rags to Riches.

Wasn't the '88 BC Distaff during WC's 3 year old campaign?

I think the historical significance of a filly winning the Belmont is more impressive than the Derby. Primarily because it had been longer since it had been accomplished. I have to say my opinion is probably jaded as I wasn't a fan of Winning Colors while she was running.

Winning Colors for me.

I don't know that I would put Winning Colors as far ahead of Rags as some on here seem to be saying, but I would put WC first.

This is in part due to the fact that I would certainly put horses like Risen Star, Personal Ensign, Forty Niner, and Goodbye Halo far ahead of horses such as Octave, Lear's Princess, Baroness Thatcher and (the lone bright spot) Curlin.

Give me Winning Colors. Everyone remembers her Derby and her run in the BC Distaff but people seem to forget her SA Derby and her Preakness. What I like about her is that she beat the boys in races at regularly run distances and in races everyone was gunning for. She didn't come in at the last moment and have one horse to beat and do it at an irregular distance against a worn down rival. Not that what Rags did wasn't significant because it was but I would have liked to have seen it in the Derby instead. Also, for me, Winning Colors' Preakness might have been the moment that sealed it for me. In the SA Derby, the Ky Derby, the Maskette, and the BC Distaff, she displayed one talent........her speed. She was faster than her rivals, she went to the front, and she made them try and catch her. That Preakness, though she lost, she was great. Pat Day on Forty Niner had instructions to do whatever it took to not allow her to win. It was Forty Niner that was on the lead in that race (23 1/5, 47, 1:11 1/5), not Winning Colors. She sat right off of his neck on the outside in second. They both set it up perfectly for Risen Star but what impressed me was how it was Forty Niner that was the one backing out of it and not Winning Colors. She dueled with him and put him away. And if people don't remember, Forty Niner was a good horse. It was that race that showed me she wasn't just a one-dimensional speed horse. It's unfortunate that her ending diminshes her in some people's minds but at her best, she was damn good.

Rags to Riches

You weren't even alive, much less a preposterous know-it-all, when Winning Colors was running.

So, I have all of her races on tape.

Don't see how there can even be comparisons when Rags has still only run against the boys once. She'd have to do it at least once more for a fair comparison to be made.

i would have to give the nod to winning colors--how could you not? she's far more accomplished, and consistently faced far better horses, than rags to riches.
but for a legendary horse running the race of her life, she'd have won that distaff.
even if she had never run past the derby, her santa anita/ky derby double put her ahead of rags. hell, just her winning the derby puts her ahead of a belmont winner.

That's true, I forgot, you are an expert at judging horses from television.

Last year, for instance, you told us just by seeing the Tampa Bay Derby on television that there was no way Street Sense would even run in the KY Derby much less win it.

As long as you continue your medical school charade I seriously hope the US doesn't take tort reform seriously.

she got you there btw! :rolleyes:

From what I've seen from both fillies, it's pretty obvious that WC at 3 was considerably better than R2R.

However, I thought prior to R2R getting hurt, that she hadn't shown us her best yet and that she was continuing to improve. The potential was there for R2R to be a better filly, especially since AP Indy's tend to get better with age, but speaking strictly as 3 yos, no contest.

Exactly. Based on accomplishments you would have to give it to WC, but Rags to Riches is the greater talent of the two. The Belmont Stakes proved it. Rags could get any distance, and was improving. WC obviously had distance limitations.

Oh, now I get it, the better horse is always the one that would win at the farthest possible distance. Thank God that's finally cleared up.