Whose was/is the best?

Originally Posted by somerfrost

I think I used words such as "arbitrary" and "subjective" in my original post. It is a neat trick and, in the end, it's one guy's opinion. I look at the entire picture, especially to what extent they dominated other horses...add to that how history has treated them and, with more recent ones, what I saw when I watched them run. Kincsem gave huge weight to males, traveled all over Europe and never lost a race...I mean 168 pounds, come now!! Her reputation is the stuff of legends...grazing unconcerned while the field broke to start the race, galloping to victory, traveling all over Europe at a time when you didn't simply hop a jet...how great was she???

Equally relevant ... how great was her competition?

A string of victories like that is nothing short of stunning ... but how can we be sure she wasn't the Lost In The Fog/Andy Kaufman of her day ... beating up on chumps?

And Flying Childers? Did he even race against thoroughbreds? The breed hadn't even been formalized then. And what leads you to believe he was better than Eclipse ... when contemporaries of that era thought Eclipse was incomparable?

Your all-encompassing global efforts are ambitious .. to say the least ... but when you become that subjective ... don't you risk losing perspective?

It's difficult enough to restrict it to classic-distance male American horses on dirt for the past 50 years ... without adding a couple of centuries ... another continent ... marathon distances ... heat racing ... both sexes ... and different surfaces.

And speaking of other continents ... where is Phar Lap on your list?