[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by Bold Brooklynite

Your concept of "greatness" is a bit more ethereal than mine.

I believe greatness is a function of proven performance ... not of speculation on what might have been. Coulda/shoulda/woulda doesn't count.

As I said in my previous post ... all we can say about Bernardini ... and Lammtarra ... is that they had great 3YO campaigns.

They only faced the best horses available in one random year. The really, really great ones did a lot more ... they beat the best ones around in multiple years ... a much more difficult achievement.

I can appreciate this sentiment. To an extent, I agree with u. I would call Bernardini one of the all-time greats.......but wouldn't put him in the Hall of Fame. To me, that is a place that should be reserved for those that combined accomplishments with ability and with durability. I think in order to be a hall of famer, u have to have been a champion in more than one year. But simply on ability, I think that can be seen and judged much earlier. That's not to say that I would put a horse up there after just breaking his maiden or winning some nw2x allowance but if u've demonstrated clearly that u are at the top of the game, even if it's only for one year, that's enough for me. Also, even though he might only be beating the best of this year, if he were to win the Classic, he'd be beating some of the best of multiple years. Lava Man was clearly one of the best of last year and some of the 3yo's that he's beaten this year will be among the best in coming years.