"fan favorite all-time Thoroughbreds bracket challenge"

[Calzone Lord]

Spectacular Bid wasn't an especially popular horse like a lot of champions from the 70's.

He wasn't a NY or California based horse with a built in fan base. His jockey and trainer were both VERY unlikeable people. Both in general, and with the racing press.

He came around at a time when he followed a bunch of very popular great racers (Secretariat, Ruffian, Forego, Affirmed, Alydar, Seattle Slew)

Unlike a lot of great horses, he was heavily traveled and heavily campaigned and tested all through his racing career and he even traveled all over and took on some big weight concessions at age 4 and he always made his competition look a lot worse than they actually were under closer and competent inspection.

I think Timeform made a mistake not rating him the outright number one horse of the last century. When you compare horses on merit, record for record, he simply holds an advantage over all of the other horses.