Non-winners of an Eclipse or Championship

[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.

[Dunbar]

Originally Posted by King Glorious

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.

I'll agree with your last 2 sentences. But I'll close my end of the discussion by saying I think a Kentucky Derby-Preakness-SuperDerby-BC Classic resume would have out trumped the Whitney-Travers-Marlboro-JCGC.

--Dunbar