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Originally Posted by my miss storm cat
This is a really good point but I want to ask something and I'll use king's Silent Witness thought as an example....
He and I have had that discussion quite a few times... horses like Silent Witness and Makybe Diva and whether or not they were greats.
I realize I'm a newer fan and so my frame of reference is a lot different, but don't the older fans also do this... consider the horses who first excited them as great?
I mean on King's tagline for example.....I'm assuming he's saying King Glorious and Java Gold were great (?). I'm not saying they were or weren't... I have no idea.
Silent Witness won 18 races... 18 - 3 - 2 out of 29. Went to Japan a couple of times, won the Sprinters Stakes over there, in his career repeatedly beat G1 winners.
So for someone who came into the game when he was undefeated and just phenomenal, for someone who didn't know any of the history of the sport, he defined greatness and that's why.
I can understand the other side though, the people who say he beat the same horses over and over.
My problem with that is that not everyone realizes just how good these other horses were. Cape of Good Hope for example.
Do the older fans do this? I'm not trying to be cute, I really want to know.
Does history make a great horse greater?
The great horses of the past..... if one were to look at who they beat, whether or not they remained in one area, etc. would they still measure up in general or have they become part of folklore?
It seems like no present day horse ever measures up to the past and I'm trying to figure out if this is valid or not.
I realize it probably is, but.....
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I don't know anything about Silent Witness, other than very casually. But I do think that who a horse beat during his races is very important as well as overall record, track records, overcoming adversity and Eclipse Awards.
I just recently had a conversation about a horse with a good friend. It was about Cigar. Despite winning four Elcipse Awards, my friend argued that Cigar was just a "marginally great" horse. He rattled off name of several horses that finished 2nd to Cigar during the streak; Dramatic Gold, Personal Merit, Wekeva Springs, Soul of the Matter, Devil His Due and Silver Goblin, among others.
I said these were all nice horses and he said yes, they were nice but they were not champions (I could be wrong but I beieve the only Eclipse winners Cigar beat were Holy Bull and Heavenly Prize).
Finally he asked me who was the best horse Cigar ran against. It was Skip Away who Cigar lost narrowly to in the JCGC (great race). So, his argument was that Cigar was just marginally great since he didn't beat champons and lost at weight-for-age vs the best horse he competed against.
Finally what seems to subordinate the best contemporary horses compared to the past is weight. Horses just don't carry and give major weight any more. It used to be the summer races for 4 yo's+ were meaningful handicaps and the fall series brought 3 yo's and older together to see who was the best of the season. It just does not happen any longer.
Cigar is ranked 18th on that Bloodhorse top 100 list that came out in 1999. Cigar, John Henry(23rd) and Spectacular Bid(10th) are the only horses in the top 25 of that list to have raced since 1980.