Horse of the World

[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.

[RolloTomasi]

Originally Posted by Cardus

Didn't Warning run in a Breeders' Cup Mile?

Yeah, he was supposed to beat Miesque in her second attempt to win the Mile in '88. Didn't handle the yielding turf allegedly.

An unheralded Steinlen was 2nd at long odds, IIRC. Bet Twice made his final career start in there, too. Not sure why they didn't take one final stab at Alysheba. He was good enough to beat him in the resurrected Pimlico Special in May, and ran close to him in the Meadowlands Cup.