Congaree was a truly outstanding horse. He and Medaglia D' Oro were open lengths the best in the Breeders Cup Classic - basically dueling each other all the way for 10 furlongs before Plesantly Perfect came along to mop them both up in the final strides.
Mineshaft ran 7 times with lasix - and ran all 7 figures in the 114-to-118 range. Hard to fault him for what he faced - he started in five Grade 1's - and horses like Western Pride, Hold That Tiger, Volponi, and Olmodavor all could run a lot on their good day .. but no way as classy and consistant as horses like MDO and Congaree - or as brilliant as a Candy Ride.
His one loss with lasix was an extremely high quality loss. He was caught like five wide on both turns - and gave 8lbs away to Perfect Drift and just got nipped after Robbie Al made a pre-mature move.
His running style was perfect - very similar to Cigar's and Curlin's. Mineshaft was always going to run in that 114-to-118 Beyer range no matter the competiton. Would Curlin rate a better horse? I think so .. but when you discount Curlin's 3yo form I don't think that's the case at all. All of that classy stock he gets - and who was Neil Howard 2nd best horse of the decade?
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