[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by Holland Hacker

IMHO Invasor is better than Alysheba, Alysheba couldn't run without Lasix. He finished 4th in the Belmont when he ran without Lasix.

Exactly. This nag couldn't run without lasix. His Belmont proved that. Forget the fact that he won the 1988 Woodward at Belmont while setting a TRACK RECORD of 1:59 2/5. That means nothing at all. The Belmont proved it all.

Invasor is a very nice horse. I admit that I had him extremely underrated all along. But he's no Alysheba. What a lot of people do when they look at Alysheba is look at the overall record. They see that he was 26-11-8-2 and say that's not a great record for an all-time great. I believe that starting after the Blue Grass Stakes (which he was clearly the best while winning only to be disqualified), he ran 16 times. I believe he won 10 of those races with three thirds. This came while running all over the country (Churchill, Pimlico, Belmont, Monmouth, Saratoga, Louisiana Downs, Hollywood, Santa Anita, Meadowlands), setting at least two track records at 10f (Meadowlands and Belmont), and running at least three sub-2:00 10f races. In those last 16 races, the following are the only horses to finish in front of Alysheba:

Derby-won
Preakness-won
Belmont-Bet Twice, Cryptoclearance, Gulch
Haskell-Bet Twice
Travers-Java Gold, Cryptoclearance, Polish Navy (maybe a couple more)
Super Derby-won
BC Classic-Ferdinand
Strub-won
SA Hcp-won
San Bernardino-won
Pimlico Special-Bet Twice, Lost Code, Cryptoclearance
Hollywood Gold Cup-Cutlass Reality
Iselin-won
Woodward-won
Meadowlands Cup-won
BC Classic-won

When he was losing, it was in the best of company that was out there. He was losing to multiple grade one winners when he was getting beaten. Invasor has the better record. Many horses have better records. But how many of them faced race in and race out the kind of competition that Alysheba faced in those two years?