Originally Posted by oracle80

Hes doesnt get it pal. He mentions Congaree as a great(and he was, up to a certain distance, one of the best milers of all time, ever!) but he was beaten at times by Scorpion and Milwaukee Brew. I guess this poster feels that both those horses should go down in history as all time greats right?
You can't judge a horse by any one criteria. Afleet Alex beat NOTHING last year, and I mean NOTHING!!!!! He actually lost to Giacomo(ouch) and beat Scrappy T in the Preakness and then beat Andromedas Hero and Nolans Cat in the Belmont( go ahead and try to find a horse in tri crown history who beat worse) but that doesnt mean Alex wasnt great. Fact is he really shredded them with enough authority that you could make the case that he may have beaten greats if they were around. That argument simply doesnt hold water from a pure common sense standpoint. This poster would have us believe that a rule exists in the universe that a horse can only truly be great if there is another great horse that year to beat.Thats not always possible. For every year with Affirmed and Alydar we have many more years where two great horses dont exist in the same year. Its nonsense to use that as a sole criteria.