Horse of the World

[Alabama Stakes]

I'm sure, if given the chance, Zenyatta would have mowed down anyone, on any surface at any distance, on any continenet. Queen of the world, Hoss of the world

[Calzone Lord]

Originally Posted by Alabama Stakes

I'm sure, if given the chance, Zenyatta would have mowed down anyone, on any surface at any distance, on any continenet. Queen of the world, Hoss of the world

Pretty unlikely.

She got a massive pace setup in the Breeders Cup Classic at 10 furlongs and still didn't win. The winner and 3rd place finishers of that BC Classic both were beaten with disdainful ease by a loose lead Haynesfield in their prior start. The race itself barely went faster than the BC Juvenile.

Zenyatta probably would have been a tough turf horse and she was our most accomplished synthetic horse of all-time. She didn't travel much and had soft campaigns against extreme cream puff competition.

[Alabama Stakes]

how about counting how many hosses she passed out of how many she ran against.

[Calzone Lord]

Originally Posted by Alabama Stakes

how about counting how many hosses she passed out of how many she ran against.

She didn't have any early speed at all and she faced A LOT of very mediocre competition.

You think Swain would have any trouble passing Blame or any of the other horses she beat?

Here's Swain in the 1998 Breeders Cup Classic ... note that the longshot in the gold that you see fading to finish 9th out of 10 is a horse named Arch -- the sire of Blame and dam sire of I'll Have Another.

That was a REAL field of proper superstar handicap horses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfOng-jaIh0

[Alabama Stakes]

Originally Posted by Calzone Lord

She didn't have any early speed at all and she faced A LOT of very mediocre competition.

You think Swain would have any trouble passing Blame or any of the other horses she beat?

Here's Swain in the 1998 Breeders Cup Classic ... note that the longshot in the gold that you see fading to finish 9th out of 10 is a horse named Arch -- the sire of Blame and dam sire of I'll Have Another.

That was a REAL field of proper superstar handicap horses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfOng-jaIh0

if Swain was so good at passing hosses, how come he got beat in there

[Calzone Lord]

Originally Posted by Alabama Stakes

if Swain was so good at passing hosses, how come he got beat in there

Outside of her win in the BC Classic on the Pro-Ride at SA over Gio Ponti -- Zenyatta passed a bunch of relative garbage in all of her wins.

She had no raw speed and was very mediocre inside of 9 furlongs. She was not campaigned in a sportsmanlike fashion nor was she assigned true handicaps with weight spreads. A few different races were even stripped of handicap and changed to stakes condition events.

In the Breeders Cup Classic at Churchill Downs she got the dreamiest pace setup a race horse could ever hope for and Smith rode a good race to keep the big slug from losing contact with the field and not getting her momentum stopped as she picked her way through the pack in arguably the weakest BC Classic dirt edition of all-time. The freaking BC Juvenile went only 3 points slower. It was the sad sun-dial collapse-fest Classic.

Anyone who thinks Zenyatta was as good a racehorse as Swain is painfully stupid.

[RolloTomasi]

Originally Posted by Alabama Stakes

if Swain was so good at passing hosses, how come he got beat in there

Watch the head-on replay.

[RolloTomasi]

I think the career of Exceller is probably the best template for a "Horse of the World".

Another one with some potential at the top level on all surfaces in Europe and NA was Erin's Isle.

Opening Verse was used as a rabbit for Indian Skimmer in the '89 Eclipse, got drilled by superhorse Nashwan, but beat everything else including his stablemate and the highly touted Warning. He was 200-1.