Shakespeare

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind

I actually completely disagree with you and think the comparison of Becrux is very legitimate. Becrux is a fairly consistent and proven horse. Crossing the Line beat him by less than a length and Shakespeare dusted him ( in a race Becrux won last year ). I place a great emphasis on level of competition when analyzing turf horses. God knows I don't use speed figures for turf races.

Obviously I know that Silver Tree is better than Sabre Baby ( and was only using him as an example because I mocked him earlier this summer at Siro's ). However, obviously you don't know how far from Shakespeare Silver Tree is. If you think a perfect trip win over Drum Major places him anywhere close to the upper echelon of turf horses then you are out of your mind. Silver Tree has proven conclusively over his career that while he's an admirable horse he is nothing special whatsoever.

Ok then how about this. Shakespeare was in a full drive to beat Kip Deville by a length. Back in March, Kip Deville beat what I thought was a tougher field than the Woodbine field when he won the Kilroe at Santa Anita (Silent Name, Milk it Mick, After Market, Three Valleys) by a neck. The fourth place finisher in that race was Porto Santo. That day, Porto Santo was beaten by 1 1/4 lengths by Kip Deville. When Crossing the Line won the race at Del Mar, he beat Porto Santo by 2 1/4 lengths. So since Kip is 1 1/4 lengths better than Porto Santo and CTL is 2 1/4 lengths better, according to your logic, that makes CTL a length better than Kip.....the same distance that Shakespear beat him by. So then CTL and Shakespeare are equal.......if u are going to judge them by how much they beat comparative horses by.

[NTamm1215]

Originally Posted by King Glorious

Ok then how about this. Shakespeare was in a full drive to beat Kip Deville by a length. Back in March, Kip Deville beat what I thought was a tougher field than the Woodbine field when he won the Kilroe at Santa Anita (Silent Name, Milk it Mick, After Market, Three Valleys) by a neck. The fourth place finisher in that race was Porto Santo. That day, Porto Santo was beaten by 1 1/4 lengths by Kip Deville. When Crossing the Line won the race at Del Mar, he beat Porto Santo by 2 1/4 lengths. So since Kip is 1 1/4 lengths better than Porto Santo and CTL is 2 1/4 lengths better, according to your logic, that makes CTL a length better than Kip.....the same distance that Shakespear beat him by. So then CTL and Shakespeare are equal.......if u are going to judge them by how much they beat comparative horses by.

Be careful with that Porto Santo analogy. He had absolutely no place to run in the Del Mar Mile and the decision with CTL would have probably been much, much closer had Nakatani not been completely stymied for over a furlong.

Also, just my opinion, the way you broke down your analysis is nice, but comparing finishing positions in races that were five months apart is a very dangerous idea. I think you missed Andy's point, which was that level of competition has to be taken into consideration, but I missed where he said that margin of victory is the deciding factor.

NT

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by NTamm1215

Be careful with that Porto Santo analogy. He had absolutely no place to run in the Del Mar Mile and the decision with CTL would have probably been much, much closer had Nakatani not been completely stymied for over a furlong.

Also, just my opinion, the way you broke down your analysis is nice, but comparing finishing positions in races that were five months apart is a very dangerous idea. I think you missed Andy's point, which was that level of competition has to be taken into consideration, but I missed where he said that margin of victory is the deciding factor.

NT

I don't think margin of victory is really that relevant of a factor at all. I only brought that up because he used how they finished againt Becrux as the first argument of comparison. I agree that level of competition is one of the biggest factors so in that regard, using Porto Santo is not much different than using Becrux.

In that Del Mar race, I just watched it again and I don't see where Porto Santo's trip was so bad. The rider was riding throughout the stretch. I think had CTL had a better trip and not had to switch from the inside to the far outside in the stretch, he could have won by even more.