Quote:
Originally Posted by King Glorious
I saw this posted somewhere else and thought it was interesting enough to share:
We are going to possibly have the undefeated Arkansas Derby winner, the undefeated Blue Grass Stakes winner, and the undefeated Santa Anita Derby winner square off in the Ky Derby. Thirty years ago it would have been considered an unfathomable, unprecedented matchup of titans. This year it's pretty much considered....meh, not much to talk about.
|
Perspective? More like amnesia.
In 2018, the unbeaten Justify (Santa Anita Derby) beat the unbeaten Magnum Moon (Arkansas Derby) and the once-beaten Audible (Florida Derby) and 2yo champion Good Magic (Blue Grass).
In 2015, the unbeaten American Pharaoh (Arkansas Derby) beat the unbeaten Dortmund (Santa Anita Derby) and the unbeaten Materiality (Florida Derby) and once-beaten Carpe Diem (Blue Grass).
This would have been "unfathomable" thirty years ago because a horse with just 5 starts under his belt would have been considered "lightly raced", horses that made their career debuts in January would have had no chance, and a horse coming out of turf races would have been from Europe. A lot has changed (for the negative) in the past 30 years.
Also, both Bob Baffert and John Sadler couldn't train a horse to go past 6 furlongs back in the early 1990s if their lives depended on it. Sadler running anything in something other than a claimer or a maiden claimer would be almost unheard of back then. Brad Cox was probably playing Nintendo...