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Originally Posted by King Glorious
Come on people. I'm not comparing them in ability. I'm comparing them in relation to the best runners of their year. That's not the same. In 1988, Gulch was the champion sprinter. He won the Met Mile too. But Personal Ensign beat him at 9f. That was beyond the distance that he was trained to specialize at that year. So don't tell me about how he won the Wood the year before. In 1988, Gulch's wins were the Sprint, Met Mile, Carter, and the Portero Grande. King's Swan was the epitome of a tough veteran the had to always be respected. In terms of ability, he and Gulch are like night and day compared to Two Step Salsa and Mast Track. Hell, in today's game, Gulch and King's Swan might be able to win Eclipse awards as champion older male and champion sprinter. That's not the comparison I was making though. As a router in 1988, Gulch was behind the likes of Alysheba, Bet Twice, Lost Code, Cryptoclearance, Cutlass Reality, Forty Niner, Waquoit, Ferdinand.....he was not a top level router.
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You're wrong about Gulch. He was specifically trained to go long. He ran in every TC race ( he was third in the Belmont ). He didn't just win the Wood....he lost a photo to the mighty Java Gold in the Whitney. He also ran second in the Woodward to Polish Navy.
Perhaps he was ultimately better sprinting, or maybe the competition was just weaker ( and Afleet should have beaten him in both the Met and BC Sprint in 1988 ) but he was still one of the best horses in the country at 1 1/8, when there were extremely good horses running, as both a 3YO and 4YO. What he was was versatile.
It's not so clear Waquoit and Crypto were consistently better than Gulch at 1 1/8...and spare me Cutlass Reality. I knew Cutlass Reality before his miracle transformation in California....and he was no Gulch.