Of course the word "great" is going to mean different things to different people, and because of that will be the cause of debate over and over again. One guy says "Ghostzapper was a great horse" and the other guy says "No he wasn't because he only raced X times and didn't beat anybody" and so on. Chocolate icecream is great. No it's not. My dad can beat up your dad. See my point.
However, in my eyes there is a very distinct difference between a "great horse" as it relates to his/her talent, potential, ability, and so forth -- and a horse who accomplished great things (or is considered great because of his accomplishments). They are seperate and distinct.
Personally, I can see using the word "great" even if a horse didn't accomplish many things, greatness, numerous notches on the belt, have an extensive resume, etc. I also think people tend to collapse great performances with "greatness" or automatically making the horse "great". This also happens when some people just don't know what they are looking at and aren't a good judge of horses, thus, they tend to fall into the trap of sitting in judgement of who a horse beat (or didn't beat), the visual aspect (visually impressive, or not), the resume, the record, times, etc. Don't get me wrong, those things can be important, but need to be looked at in the big picture. The myopic view doesn't offer validation in my mind.
Eric
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