Non-winners of an Eclipse or Championship

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by Dunbar

"without question" is a stretch. Alysheba won the Derby in amazing fashion (after just about digging his nose out of the ground when clipping the heels of Bet Twice), went on to win the Preakness, and missed winning the Breeder's Cup Classic by a whisker.

--Dunbar

Alysheba didn't really prove to me that he was much better than Bet Twice. They split their four meetings that year, Alysheba taking the Derby and Preakness while Bet Twice took the Belmont and Haskell. Polish Navy was also right there with them. He took the Jim Dandy (beating Cryptoclearance) before being twice beaten by Java Gold (Travers and Marlboro). When he was able to get away from Java Gold, he came back to win the Woodward, beating older horses and Bet Twice in the process. Java Gold beat them all in the Travers. A lot of people were left to wonder about the legitimacy of the Travers due to the sloppy track but Cryptoclearance was a confirmed off-track runner and he was no match for JG. When he backed up his win by taking the Marlboro, people knew he was the real deal, especially when Polish Navy came back to win the Woodward.

Alysheba was a very fine horse as a 3yo. He was the best horse when dq'd in the Blue Grass and he was a convincing winner of the Derby and Preakness. He ran a very nice race when second in the Haskell and another one when second in the BC Classic. But it's worth noting that from the middle of May through the end of the year, he only won a single race, the Super Derby. For the year, his record was three wins in 10 starts (four if u give him the Blue Grass). That's hardly overwhelming. And I know that he lost the Classic by a nose to the HOY Ferdinand....but in my opinion Ferdinand was one of the weakest HOY winners in my 22 years following the game, maybe the weakest. He only won four of 10 starts that year. A HOY with a losing record? He's so unregarded historically that he won the Derby and the BC Classic, was a HOY.....and still is not in the hall of fame.

Where Alysheba made his legacy was as a 4yo. That season, he dominated like few others have in the last 30 years.

[blackthroatedwind]

I'm not sure not being " much " better than Bet Twice was not VERY good. Bet Twice was a mighty good 3YO and would have drowned some of the recent 3YOs that have been unreasonably lauded as " great ". The simple truth was that 1987 was a tremendous year for 3YOs and perhaps as deep a group as we have seen in the last 30 or more years.

Personally I favored Java Gold but unfortunately his only race against Alysheba, and the others, was in the slop in that great Travers. Yeah, I think he would have won on a dry track, but unfortunately that's only conjecture. And, what Alysheba did as a 4YO, without Lasix, will stamp him as one of the greats of my lifetime.

Talking and thinking about these horses only makes the paper tigers we see nowadays seem all the more mediocre. The older a racefan you are the harder it is to appreciate the lightly raced would-be champions of today.

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind

I'm not sure not being " much " better than Bet Twice was not VERY good. Bet Twice was a mighty good 3YO and would have drowned some of the recent 3YOs that have been unreasonably lauded as " great ". The simple truth was that 1987 was a tremendous year for 3YOs and perhaps as deep a group as we have seen in the last 30 or more years.

Personally I favored Java Gold but unfortunately his only race against Alysheba, and the others, was in the slop in that great Travers. Yeah, I think he would have won on a dry track, but unfortunately that's only conjecture. And, what Alysheba did as a 4YO, without Lasix, will stamp him as one of the greats of my lifetime.

Talking and thinking about these horses only makes the paper tigers we see nowadays seem all the more mediocre. The older a racefan you are the harder it is to appreciate the lightly raced would-be champions of today.

In a way, u are right. The real truth is that all of those 3yo's (Java Gold, Alysheba, Bet Twice, Polish Navy, Gulch, Cryptoclearance, the forgotten Lost Code) were really good that year. I think it's far and away the best class in terms of talent AND depth that I've ever seen. I haven't even included the Derby favorite Demons Begone or a turf star like Trempolino or the fillies like Very Subtle, Miesque and Sacahuista. There was another highly regarded but not nationally known filly named Personal Ensign that year. Miesque too.

I absolutely agree with u that Alysheba's 4yo season was one for the ages and that seasons and horses like these we are speaking of make these horses of today look really bad. But I blame the humans more than the horses. I don't think horses like Bernardini, GZ, and Discreet Cat are any less talented than those horses from the past. They just don't get the opportunities to show it the same way. If those horses from the past were running today, they wouldn't be any less talented than they were but we wouldn't get the chance to see it on display and proven the way we did then.

Oh yeah, my original point wasn't to say that Alysheba and Bet Twice weren't that good. They were. It was to say that as good as Alysheba was, I didn't end that year with the clear feeling that he was better than Bet Twice was and after watching Bet Twice get handled in the Woodward by Polish Navy, who couldn't come close to beating JG, I felt the clear best horse was obvious. It will always kill me that he was 1-9 to be HOY and then ended up getting nothing.

[Dunbar]

Originally Posted by King Glorious

It will always kill me that he was 1-9 to be HOY and then ended up getting nothing.

Good discussion. I'll just add that even if Java Gold had won the JCGC at 1-9, I don't think HOY was a "gimme". If the BC Classic finish line was 10 feet further, Alysheba would have won it and I don't think a Derby-Preakness-BCC winner is going to be denied HOY.

You might counter that reasoning by saying you were assuming Java Gold wins the 1-9 race but everything else stays the same. But everything else could have been affected by a differently run JCGC. Maybe the BCC lineup would have been affected. It wouldn't take much of a perturbation to have reversed the finish of Alysheba and Ferdinand.

I agree with both you and BTW that thinking of those great horses makes the state of racing today all the sadder.

--Dunbar

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by Dunbar

Good discussion. I'll just add that even if Java Gold had won the JCGC at 1-9, I don't think HOY was a "gimme". If the BC Classic finish line was 10 feet further, Alysheba would have won it and I don't think a Derby-Preakness-BCC winner is going to be denied HOY.

You might counter that reasoning by saying you were assuming Java Gold wins the 1-9 race but everything else stays the same. But everything else could have been affected by a differently run JCGC. Maybe the BCC lineup would have been affected. It wouldn't take much of a perturbation to have reversed the finish of Alysheba and Ferdinand.

I agree with both you and BTW that thinking of those great horses makes the state of racing today all the sadder.

--Dunbar

Had Alysheba won the Classic, it could have made things very interesting. I don't think at the time that the Classic held as much weight as it does now though. Back then, horses ran and faced other top contenders more often and with longer campaigns, there was a bigger body of work to look at than there is today. Today, u only have three or four other starts to look at and often, they don't face another marquee horse in most of them so the BC takes on more significance because it's one of the very few times we see them all together. Also, in 1987, the BC was still pretty much in its infancy (4th year) and wasn't quite the prestigious event it is today. I remember a few Eastern trainers didn't really care too much about coming out here. Mack Miller wasn't planning on sending Java Gold that year. Creme Fraiche won two JCGC's and didn't come either year. Personal Ensign skipped the 1987 Distaff. Forty Niner wasn't sent for the 1987 Juvenile. It took them a few years to get past the mentality that the fall races at Belmont were no longer considered the championship races. I feel that a JCGC win for Java Gold would have sealed it no matter the outcome of the Classic. I feel that had Alysheba won the Classic, it would have been looked at as another 3yo beating older that year (to go along with Polish Navy's Woodward, JG's Whitney and Marlboro, Gulch's Met Mile, Very Subtle's BC Sprint) and not even that good a group of older, considering Ferdinand would have been 3-10 on the year and was considered the best of the group.

Leaving Gone West off was a mistake. He won the Gotham over Gulch and lost that close one to him in the Wood. He later won the Dwyer and Withers. He wasn't third though in that Whitney. Broad Brush was third. I think GW might have been fourth. Very nice horse though. He was also second in the Hutcheson and Peter Pan and third in the Fountain of Youth. I remember being surprised by him because I didn't know him at all coming into the year and thinking that Florida races were flukes until he handed it to Gulch in NY.

[blackthroatedwind]

I agree with a lot of what you're saying but on the specifics....Miller toyed with bringing Java Gold to the Classic after he lost the JCGC but an injury prevented that. Creme Fraiche was a gelding and was most likely also not nominated ( his sire, I believe, was Rich Creme ). Personal Ensign most likely didn't come as she had renently won two races in 12 days and was coming off a severe injury. Shug was not averse to shipping back then ( didn't Polish Navy run in the previous Juvenile? ).

I loved Gone West. The Gotham was in the slop...which he relished.

[Dunbar]

Originally Posted by King Glorious

Had Alysheba won the Classic, it could have made things very interesting. I don't think at the time that the Classic held as much weight as it does now though. Back then, horses ran and faced other top contenders more often and with longer campaigns, there was a bigger body of work to look at than there is today. Today, u only have three or four other starts to look at and often, they don't face another marquee horse in most of them so the BC takes on more significance because it's one of the very few times we see them all together. Also, in 1987, the BC was still pretty much in its infancy (4th year) and wasn't quite the prestigious event it is today. I remember a few Eastern trainers didn't really care too much about coming out here. Mack Miller wasn't planning on sending Java Gold that year. Creme Fraiche won two JCGC's and didn't come either year. Personal Ensign skipped the 1987 Distaff. Forty Niner wasn't sent for the 1987 Juvenile. It took them a few years to get past the mentality that the fall races at Belmont were no longer considered the championship races. I feel that a JCGC win for Java Gold would have sealed it no matter the outcome of the Classic. I feel that had Alysheba won the Classic, it would have been looked at as another 3yo beating older that year (to go along with Polish Navy's Woodward, JG's Whitney and Marlboro, Gulch's Met Mile, Very Subtle's BC Sprint) and not even that good a group of older, considering Ferdinand would have been 3-10 on the year and was considered the best of the group.

I think the BC Classic was already shaping Eclipse thinking by 1987. IMO the BCC was a considered a good bit more important than the Woodward, Whitney or Marlboro. Doesn't Ferdinand's HOY demonstrate that?

--Dunbar

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by Dunbar

I think the BC Classic was already shaping Eclipse thinking by 1987. IMO the BCC was a considered a good bit more important than the Woodward, Whitney or Marlboro. Doesn't Ferdinand's HOY demonstrate that?

--Dunbar

I felt the door was opened by JG losing the JCGC. Had he won, the Classic would have been moot in my opinion. So no, I don't think Ferdinand's win demonstrated that. The Classic might have been more important than those other races as individual events but not when u put them together as a collection. At that time, a Whitney-Travers-Marlboro-JCGC resume would have outdone a Hollywood GC-Goodwood-BCC. At that time, the Goodwood was a grade three race too.

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind

The older a racefan you are the harder it is to appreciate the lightly raced would-be champions of today.

Yeah, the people old enough to remember Roseben making seven starts in six weeks, during the fall of 1906, must have really thought those paper champions racing in '87 were a bunch of wussies.

Roseben was 7-6-1-0 over that stretch. Carrying 150lbs, and spotting the winner 41lbs in his only loss. He finished up his tear with a 6 length win in the 1906 Manhatten handicap on Oct 12th. He gave the runner up 36lbs. 4 days later, he returned to win at Belmont Park by 20 lengths, getting 7 furlongs in a then world record 1:22 flat. Getting his last 1/8th in a supersonic 11 3/5ths.

Horses have become less and less Roseben like with each passing decade. Hopefully, in the very distant future, they don't one-day become like boxers, and only show up two or three times a year.

[blackthroatedwind]

As an aside, back in 1906, what did your great great great grandfather use for athletic socks?

[The Indomitable DrugS]

I have no clue what my male ancestors used to catch their nut with.

Just for that, I think I might just start a "best horse through the first six races of his life" thread.

[blackthroatedwind]

Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS

Just for that, I think I might just start a "best horse through the first six races of his life" thread.

Why not just change your name to " The Redundant Drugs "?

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind

Why not just change your name to " The Redundant Drugs "?

Come to think of it---an actual case could be made that Candy Ride was as impressive through the first six races of his career.



Running a mile in a world record 1:31 flat while winning a 15 runner Group 1 on turf by a city block. Running a mile and a quarter in 1:59 flat while winning a Grade 1 on dirt. And getting a two-turn mile in 1:35 2/5ths in a workout.

The horse he beat in his only American turf start came back to win a Grade 1 race, by five lengths, in course record time at Del Mar next out.

He seems like a 1st ballot lock with Discreet Cat in your "lightly raced paper-champion" Hall of Fame.