I need to listen to ATR more often

[ateamstupid]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

Now you're just talking about semantics. If a guy says that he thinks a horse is "one of the all-time greats", is that putting a crown on the horse's head? I don't know the answer to that. The guy is just giving his opinion. I don't know if I would define that as "putting a crown on her head".

Sounds like you're the one arguing semantics. The point is, he bestowed extreme praise on her and then backed off by saying he's not crowning her. Both ways it can't be.

And yes, he lacks perspective when he aligns the achievements of Personal Ensign and Zenyatta the way he does. What Zenyatta did against St Trinians, while impressive, is absolutely irrelevant to what PE did against Winning Colors, because their competition were in two completely different classes of animal.

See, this is the problem with Zenyatta freaks. They like comparing her to the great racemares of the past, and their justification for doing so is her record and her running style. But record and running style are next to meaningless if you're beating up on ordinary horses 95% of the time. And yes, ST is an ordinary horse, I don't care what the toteboard in the Big Cap said.

It's also a problem with racing fans in general, the constant impulse to compare horses of the present to horses of the past, and it's usually unfair to the horse of the present. Instead of everyone appreciating Zenyatta for what she is, a very good mare with a beautiful and admirable will to win, rational racing fans are inundated with comparisons to Cigar and Citation and Personal Ensign and Secretariat and Picasso and Rembrandt. It's tiresome and unnecessary. Why is there such a rush to measure up the stars of today against the ghosts of the past while horses like Zenyatta are still writing their own stories?