[RolloTomasi]

Originally Posted by Indian Charlie

I still don't know how good AP is, as he is still improving, while winning easily, except for the derby, where I've felt all along he was either short or had an off day.

Coincidentally, it's the only race where a strong pace rival (or two) was in front him early and did not fold like a cheap suit, forcing him to dig into his "reserves" if you like.

That is besides when Om outran him in his debut.

The odds of it happening are highly unlikely, but a bcc featuring sb, AP and possibly kentuckian would be freaking awesome. I'd be completely at a loss as to who would win. Throw honor code into the mix and that would be the most exciting race in ages.

You should at least know that Kentuckian would run dead last. Or are we assuming that he'll have won the Los Alamitos Derby, Travers, and Pennsylvania Derby by widening lengths with no sign of weakening or vulnerability that would make one think that he couldn't just simply keep going on and on no matter the pace scenario, distance, surface, or planet for that matter?

As to the result of the Brooklyn, to quote my favorite star trek line, irrelevant, irrelevant, irrelevant!

Why? Because Coach Inge was making his graded stakes debut from a conditioned allowance race, yet ran nearly as fast as the subsequent Triple Crown winner? In fact, running a faster final quarter mile than AP, ironically the lynchpin amongst a cascade of commentators as to why American Pharoah's Belmont was such a megaperformance.

I get what you are saying about that, but number zealots should learn to use and trust their senses, especially their vision.

But that's why numbers came to prominence, because people's biases come into play and they tend to see what they want...especially when it comes to their favorite horses.

Can't these people see that when he runs his normal race, other horses that try to run with or to him get run off their feet?

Certainly, amongst a narrow group of 3yos, this has been the case...when he's had the run of the race. Again, when he didn't have the run of the race (i.e., a perfect trip) he was nowhere near invincible or dominating.

It's incomprehensible to me how anyone can't see the improvement from each leg of the triple crown to the next. His derby, on paper, was better than his Preakness? That is an absurdity of biblical proportions. His Belmont barely better than his Preakness? The Beyer clan needs to retire, that opinion being so so bad.

The Derby was much better than the Preakness. At least in Kentucky, despite coming back down to earth, he showed some mettle when neither Firing Line nor Dortmund packed it in when he came to them. At Pimlico, he did exactly what you purport, that he simply runs horses off their feet...only he went so fast for the first 3/4s that he exhausted himself, as plain as day if you simply look at his come-home time in that race. Perhaps if a strong finisher was in there, you know, besides Tale of Verve, there might have been a different outcome. Too bad today's horsemen don't remember the plethora of Derby also-rans in the '80s and '90s that came back and reversed form at Pimlico.

It's as if a lightly raced young horse racing himself into top shape cannot improve from one race to another? Is that the implication?

Is your implication that American Pharoah was merely "prepping" for the Belmont in the Derby and Preakness?

Ridiculous.

Smarty ran an awesome race indeed. It was Herculean in effort. The thing is though, was that he ran as good a race as was possible. Pharoah? He could have been asked even earlier and his win would have been even more dramatic. He toyed with his opponents in a manner similar to what fupeg did to the deputy at Santa Anita. They both schooled their foes and could have won more impressively.

This logic is silly that somehow American Pharoah can simply go fast early, keep going fast, go faster if challenged, and faster still for an indefinite distance. He proved in the Preakness that going fast early blunts his finishing power. He proved in the Derby that if hooked by a quality rival he is unable to simply "run away" from them. Certainly, if there was something else in the Belmont of the quality of a Rock Hard Ten or an Eddington that could have put pressure on American Pharoah in the middle of the race, we might have seen Frosted emulate Birdstone.

I like the allusion to Fusaichi Pegasus. If ever there was a horse that looked like he could simply do anything and "toy with rivals" and keep going indefinitely, getting stronger with each furlong, it was that horse.

And yet, as it turned out, as his race record suggests, he was nothing of the sort.

Therefore, I'd say AP was more impressive of the two.

But not as impressive as Kentuckian if you extrapolate another 3 furlongs to that one's 7f performances.