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Originally Posted by Indian Charlie
Risking tying Danzig's all time consecutive post mark here, but I'm not sure I understand your post.
By 'rest of his career', I assume you do mean his entire career and not what came after the BC. My answer to that is that horse never really put it all together, and/or was ridden with questionable tactics by Solis.
You can't see how I can put him higher? How about the fact he deadheated the horse almost everyone on here has as the 2nd highest rated horse? Was that just some weird fluke? Did HC just have a bad day? I don't get it.
The only answer you've come up with is that some other horse had a bad ride, which still makes no sense to me.
I will concede to you that HC was a far more accomplished horse than Johar, but no way can I say that HC was the better horse.
Oh, and just how many races of Johar's did you see?
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The key factor of that race was Daryll Holland. On an absolute tank of a horse with a definite question mark over his stamina, he went far too early on him. His move hurried Kinane in chasing him earlier than he would have wanted to, got into a battle with a world class horse, just got the better of him less than 50 yards to go and nearly got mugged on the line by Johar who swooped late and fast. Great run by all 3, but it was a terrible ride by Holland on Falbrav and Kinane could have ridden better. Now, he got the job done by winning, but I dont think it was a fantastic ride. I dont think it was HC's best race but he toughed it out... HC did come back from an injury to run as a 4yo and it is very probably that he was a shade less competitive as a 4yo..
Johar on his home patch, with ground conditions to suit, with his trainer on absolute fire that day ran the race of his life, the race dynamics favoured him big time. You can say what a travesty it is that he dead heated with the guy who was number 2 on the list, but that's the way I saw it. I dont go around saying the mighty Drifting Snow is better than Sea The Stars because the one time they met, Driving Snow beat Sea The Stars by a length the one time they met. Its not quite as easy as that.. The funny thing is I actually think Falbrav was just as good as High Chaparral but lost all 3 times he faced him..
Johar never produced a performance like his BC run before, and never produced one after, so in my mind, it was flukish.
Finally, I dont know off hand how many races of a horse racing 6 years ago that I saw, but I watched plenty of turf racing from around the world at that time (I had nothing better to do) so I'd be pretty confident that I saw at least his last 6 races.. Should I go back and watch some more?