I would go with Jon White rating her as the greatest horse - male or female - since Spectacular Bid.
Joe Drape never makes any sense - Hovdey is only capable of fluff - and I have absolutely no idea what Haskin is talking about...I've never seen My Little Pony and it sounds kind of gay.
You look at the two most dominant sires of my lifetime - Mr. Prospector and Storm Cat ... Mr. P was a sprinter who struggled badly to get a mile in his Derby Trial defeat. Storm Cat was a precocious 2-year-old speed horse who was fragile and didn't have much of a career despite being trained by a guy who rushes nothing and ruins nothing.
You look at the popularity of 2-year-old sales - a couple thousand babies pressed into trying to run 10 flat 1/8ths under-tack every year. You breed - or pinhook - a horse like The Green Monkey and you hit a home run.
Our best turf horse is sired by faint hearted speedball Tale of the Cat.
Our horses now completely suck at getting a distance. Who's our top North American finisher from the last 3 Breeders Cup Classics? Tiago, Zenyatta, and Blame. That's really murderers row right there. Who's our last 3 Kentucky Derby winners? Big Brown, Mine That Bird, and Super Saver .. what a powerhouse collection of soundness and quality right there. The Belmont is an eye-sore most years. They either have to set a painfully slow pace to get the distance - or else a Jazil will win it.
The way the breed is trending - it's becoming a more impressive accomplishment to breeze an outright bullet 1/4 at Fasig Tipton Calder than it is to be a top class distance horse on either surface. Just because Zenyatta's a great mare - and can stay a classic distance in an era when few still can - it doesn't mean we have to pretend she's way more than what she is.
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