How do you.....

[my miss storm cat]

Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind

Here's the problem as I see it, to many people who haven't followed the game for that long, and don't know the history, these horses are special....because relative to what they've seen they are, in fact, special. Now, in the short term there's nothing specifically wrong with that, but in relation to the true greats these horses are also rans. That doesn't mean they aren't very good horses, but it also doesn't put them in the rarified air of the true greats, and if you are going to attach the word " great " to a horse it is competing with history....and not just the personal history of the judger.

This is a really good point but I want to ask something and I'll use king's Silent Witness thought as an example....

He and I have had that discussion quite a few times... horses like Silent Witness and Makybe Diva and whether or not they were greats.

I realize I'm a newer fan and so my frame of reference is a lot different, but don't the older fans also do this... consider the horses who first excited them as great?

I mean on King's tagline for example.....I'm assuming he's saying King Glorious and Java Gold were great (?). I'm not saying they were or weren't... I have no idea.

Silent Witness won 18 races... 18 - 3 - 2 out of 29. Went to Japan a couple of times, won the Sprinters Stakes over there, in his career repeatedly beat G1 winners.

So for someone who came into the game when he was undefeated and just phenomenal, for someone who didn't know any of the history of the sport, he defined greatness and that's why.

I can understand the other side though, the people who say he beat the same horses over and over.

My problem with that is that not everyone realizes just how good these other horses were. Cape of Good Hope for example.

Do the older fans do this? I'm not trying to be cute, I really want to know.

Does history make a great horse greater?

The great horses of the past..... if one were to look at who they beat, whether or not they remained in one area, etc. would they still measure up in general or have they become part of folklore?

It seems like no present day horse ever measures up to the past and I'm trying to figure out if this is valid or not.

I realize it probably is, but.....

[blackthroatedwind]

Of course people are influenced by personal favorites of their's but hopefully that doesn't cloud their judgement. If you're a serious horseplayer it certainly better not and most likely doesn't. You shouldn't bet horses just because you have some sort of affinity for them and you shouldn't overrate them for the same reason. Hopefully KG realizes that King Glorious and Java Gold weren't great horses.....because they weren't ( and I loved Java Gold as much as any horse I ever saw race ).

I think in the past people had a much better field of comparison than they do these days as horses raced more often and for longer and thus their warts got exposed more readily. For that reason, the few that showed exceptional talent proved it on the racetrack. Horses like Buckpasser ( who was mentioned earlier ) and Dr. Fager left indisputable proof on the racetrack of their massive talents. I think the proponents of some of the paper tigers of recent years should take a good look at the lifetime pps of Foolish Pleasure, a horse hardly considered great, and thus get a good dose of what it must have taken to be placed on that pedestal even 30 short years ago.

Silent Witness was probably at least a very substantial racehorse to have accomplished what he did but I just don't know nearly enough about him to measure his real talent.

[my miss storm cat]

Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind

Of course people are influenced by personal favorites of their's but hopefully that doesn't cloud their judgement. If you're a serious horseplayer it certainly better not and most likely doesn't. You shouldn't bet horses just because you have some sort of affinity for them and you shouldn't overrate them for the same reason. Hopefully KG realizes that King Glorious and Java Gold weren't great horses.....because they weren't ( and I loved Java Gold as much as any horse I ever saw race ).

I think in the past people had a much better field of comparison than they do these days as horses raced more often and for longer and thus their warts got exposed more readily. For that reason, the few that showed exceptional talent proved it on the racetrack. Horses like Buckpasser ( who was mentioned earlier ) and Dr. Fager left indisputable proof on the racetrack of their massive talents. I think the proponents of some of the paper tigers of recent years should take a good look at the lifetime pps of Foolish Pleasure, a horse hardly considered great, and thus get a good dose of what it must have taken to be placed on that pedestal even 30 short years ago.

Silent Witness was probably at least a very substantial racehorse to have accomplished what he did but I just don't know nearly enough about him to measure his real talent.

Again, that's a good point.

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind

Of course people are influenced by personal favorites of their's but hopefully that doesn't cloud their judgement. If you're a serious horseplayer it certainly better not and most likely doesn't. You shouldn't bet horses just because you have some sort of affinity for them and you shouldn't overrate them for the same reason. Hopefully KG realizes that King Glorious and Java Gold weren't great horses.....because they weren't ( and I loved Java Gold as much as any horse I ever saw race ).

I think in the past people had a much better field of comparison than they do these days as horses raced more often and for longer and thus their warts got exposed more readily. For that reason, the few that showed exceptional talent proved it on the racetrack. Horses like Buckpasser ( who was mentioned earlier ) and Dr. Fager left indisputable proof on the racetrack of their massive talents. I think the proponents of some of the paper tigers of recent years should take a good look at the lifetime pps of Foolish Pleasure, a horse hardly considered great, and thus get a good dose of what it must have taken to be placed on that pedestal even 30 short years ago.

Silent Witness was probably at least a very substantial racehorse to have accomplished what he did but I just don't know nearly enough about him to measure his real talent.

I absolutely do think KG and Java Gold were great horses. I think Ghostzapper and Smarty Jones were great horses. I think Lammatarra and Arazi were great horses as well. I didn't watch horses race before 1986 though so I don't think it's fair for me to accurately try to judge horses that ran before then. Sure, I can look over the history books and look at who they faced and beat, how fast they ran and how much weight they carried, how many championships they won, etc and form a pretty educated opinion on them but without having been there when it was happening, I wouldn't try to make the judgement. While I do think the horses that I listed were great horses, I wouldn't ever try to make the argument that they were better than the horses generally regarded as the best ever, horses like Bid or Secretariat or Dr. Fager. My opinion is not based on proven and tested facts as much as it is on limited evidence and belief. What I don't like, however, is the belief that some of the horses we've seen over the past 20 years COULDN'T have done what some of the greats of the past did. It's not fair to the horses to downgrade them because of what the humans have done to the game. Maybe King Glorious couldn't have carried 130+ and set a world record at a mile. But if Dr. Fager had been running today instead of when he was running, he wouldn't ever have gotten the chance to do some of the things he did. If Spectacular Bid was running today, chances are he'd not get a chance to run a 4yo campaign, which is where he showed his complete greatness. So it's about opportunity as well as ability. Today's horses may or may not have some of the ability of the past horses. We'll never know. Take a horse like Bernardini. He was dominant over his peers as a 3yo. He lost to a champion older horse by a length at the end of his 3yo season and every cynic pointed to that as proof that he was overrated. Didn't the great Spectacular Bid as a 3yo lose to the 4yo Affirmed in the 1979 JCGC? Didn't the great Affirmed as a 3yo lose to the 4yo Seattle Slew in the 1978 JCGC (both beaten by Exceller)? The difference was that each of those 3yo's got the chance to continue on as 4yo's an prove their greatness. Sometimes, opportunity and timing can be just as, if not more important than ability. I mention timing because I think that often, perception is important in how a horse is judged. Going back to Affirmed, think about his TC win. Without Alydar around, Affirmed would have streaked to wins of about three, eight, and 13 lengths and not only been a TC winner but a DOMINATING winner. I believe that the perception of just how good he was would be higher under that scenario. Same thing with Easy Goer/Sunday Silence. Without the other around, either of them would have been a runaway TC winner. I believe that had there been no Sunday Silence, people today would be talking about Easy Goer as one of the five best horses of all-time. An undeated 3yo season that included not only a TC sweep but wins in the Gotham, Wood, Travers and four grade one wins against older horses in the Suburban, Whitney, Woodward, and JCGC. I'm sure he'd be mentioned as top five ever. But....there was a Sunday Silence around. Does that mean that Easy Goer's actual talent level wasn't as high as it was? No. He was as good as we thought he was. He just wasn't as good as Sunday Silence. Ability+opportunity+timing.

[blackthroatedwind]

You can believe all you want but they weren't great horses.

You make an interesting point about Affirmed, but I think his stock was actually elevated because Alydar was around, and his incredible ability to finish ahead of a horse as immensely talented as the mighty Alydar was the true measure of Affirmed. If you are at all confused about this find a film of Alydar's win in the Whitney as he prepped for the Travers ( and then find one of Affirmed making up five lengths on a loose on the lead Sensitive Prince in the final eighth of a mile in the Jim Dandy just a few days later ).

As for Easy Goer and Sunday Silence....you make another interesting point. However, I'm not sure that both horses shouldn't be considered great and they would surely have routinely drowned the likes of Java Gold, Smarmy Jones....and of course King Glorious. Azari was possibly a great 2YO...but so was Devil's Bag. Do you consider him great as well?

[blackthroatedwind]

By the way, I think Java Gold did have the potential to be a very special horse but unfortunately both Pat Day and injuries kept us from seeing that. He was a wonderful horse. I have a great picture of him winning the Whitney somewhere. I should mail it to you.

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind

You can believe all you want but they weren't great horses.

You make an interesting point about Affirmed, but I think his stock was actually elevated because Alydar was around, and his incredible ability to finish ahead of a horse as immensely talented as the mighty Alydar was the true measure of Affirmed. If you are at all confused about this find a film of Alydar's win in the Whitney as he prepped for the Travers ( and then find one of Affirmed making up five lengths on a loose on the lead Sensitive Prince in the final eighth of a mile in the Jim Dandy just a few days later ).

As for Easy Goer and Sunday Silence....you make another interesting point. However, I'm not sure that both horses shouldn't be considered great and they would surely have routinely drowned the likes of Java Gold, Smarmy Jones....and of course King Glorious. Azari was possibly a great 2YO...but so was Devil's Bag. Do you consider him great as well?

As you know, over time, legends grow. To those that were around and know how good Alydar was, they hold Affirmed in much higher regard. But as time goes by, there are fewer and fewer around that know the complete situation and all they rely on are records and videos. If you didn't know anything about the other horses of his day and just watched videos of Affirmed running off with easy victories in the TC, your belief of how good he was would probably be higher than if you watched him eek out narrow victories over Alydar.

As for Easy Goer and Sunday Silence, how great either of them were is up for debate. But I'd bet 4/5 that Easy Goer would be in that top five conversation if there would have been no Sunday Silence because of his record. And I don't think either of them was as good as Java Gold or Smarty Jones. At 10f, I'd grudgingly have to give them the edge over KG but at 7f or 8f, I'll agree with what McCarron said; that they wouldn't catch him. Even at 9f, it might be tough if there wasn't anything up there to keep him company.

With Arazi, I'm not sure how good he was. I don't know if he was a great horse or not. What I do know is that I saw him make the same move in the Derby as he made in the BC and it wasn't a lack of ability that got him beat that day. He was done in by a lack of preparation and by the way his human connections handled him. With him, I thought he was so far ahead of his contemporaries that he could have, under the right circumstances, put some major wins on his record.

[blackthroatedwind]

Right, but what you are really doing is bolstering my entire argument that because people don't know history they misevaluate horses. If you know history, you understand the true greatness of the likes of Affirmed and Alydar.....if you don't you lack the depth to either truly understand their talents and, more importantly, the real talents of those masquerading as their supposed heir apparents.

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind

Right, but what you are really doing is bolstering my entire argument that because people don't know history they misevaluate horses. If you know history, you understand the true greatness of the likes of Affirmed and Alydar.....if you don't you lack the depth to either truly understand their talents and, more importantly, the real talents of those masquerading as their supposed heir apparents.

I do agree with you 100% that knowing history is the best way to evaluate them as far as historical purposes. That's why I stick to evaluating only those that have run during my time.

[miraja2]

Originally Posted by King Glorious

As for Easy Goer and Sunday Silence, how great either of them were is up for debate. But I'd bet 4/5 that Easy Goer would be in that top five conversation if there would have been no Sunday Silence because of his record. And I don't think either of them was as good as Java Gold or Smarty Jones. At 10f, I'd grudgingly have to give them the edge over KG but at 7f or 8f, I'll agree with what McCarron said; that they wouldn't catch him. Even at 9f, it might be tough if there wasn't anything up there to keep him company.

Are you:
a) joking
b) intentionally trying to piss me off
c) stoned
or
d) out of your mind?

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by miraja2

Are you:
a) joking
b) intentionally trying to piss me off
c) stoned
or
d) out of your mind?

Why should one person's opinion piss you off? Yours doesn't bother me in the least bit and mine shouldn't bother you. I don't think any of the choices fit. I'm not one that believes that horses should be rated only by what they do at the classic distances. Since something like 75-80% of the races run in this country are sprints and miles, those are important races too. Chris McCarron rode Sunday Silence and he rode against Easy Goer and he was quoted as saying that up to a mile, they wouldn't catch KG. That's not insignificant in my mind. Even so, don't be pissed off. It's only one person's opinion.

My ranking of the five Sightseek asked about would be:
1. Smarty Jones (I thought his best race was the Belmont)
2. Bernardini (showed what people believed was brilliance all year; confirmed it in the BC Classic)
3. Curlin (much the same as Bernardini but I think he needs to be asked more to do things that the others did more naturally, if that makes any sense)
4. Afleet Alex (versatile enough to run 1:09 and change and also win at 12f just three months later)
5. Barbaro (dominated the Derby but his other dirt races weren't anywhere near what the rest of these did on multiple occassions)

[SentToStud]

Originally Posted by my miss storm cat

This is a really good point but I want to ask something and I'll use king's Silent Witness thought as an example....

He and I have had that discussion quite a few times... horses like Silent Witness and Makybe Diva and whether or not they were greats.

I realize I'm a newer fan and so my frame of reference is a lot different, but don't the older fans also do this... consider the horses who first excited them as great?

I mean on King's tagline for example.....I'm assuming he's saying King Glorious and Java Gold were great (?). I'm not saying they were or weren't... I have no idea.

Silent Witness won 18 races... 18 - 3 - 2 out of 29. Went to Japan a couple of times, won the Sprinters Stakes over there, in his career repeatedly beat G1 winners.

So for someone who came into the game when he was undefeated and just phenomenal, for someone who didn't know any of the history of the sport, he defined greatness and that's why.

I can understand the other side though, the people who say he beat the same horses over and over.

My problem with that is that not everyone realizes just how good these other horses were. Cape of Good Hope for example.

Do the older fans do this? I'm not trying to be cute, I really want to know.

Does history make a great horse greater?

The great horses of the past..... if one were to look at who they beat, whether or not they remained in one area, etc. would they still measure up in general or have they become part of folklore?

It seems like no present day horse ever measures up to the past and I'm trying to figure out if this is valid or not.

I realize it probably is, but.....

I don't know anything about Silent Witness, other than very casually. But I do think that who a horse beat during his races is very important as well as overall record, track records, overcoming adversity and Eclipse Awards.

I just recently had a conversation about a horse with a good friend. It was about Cigar. Despite winning four Elcipse Awards, my friend argued that Cigar was just a "marginally great" horse. He rattled off name of several horses that finished 2nd to Cigar during the streak; Dramatic Gold, Personal Merit, Wekeva Springs, Soul of the Matter, Devil His Due and Silver Goblin, among others.

I said these were all nice horses and he said yes, they were nice but they were not champions (I could be wrong but I beieve the only Eclipse winners Cigar beat were Holy Bull and Heavenly Prize).

Finally he asked me who was the best horse Cigar ran against. It was Skip Away who Cigar lost narrowly to in the JCGC (great race). So, his argument was that Cigar was just marginally great since he didn't beat champons and lost at weight-for-age vs the best horse he competed against.

Finally what seems to subordinate the best contemporary horses compared to the past is weight. Horses just don't carry and give major weight any more. It used to be the summer races for 4 yo's+ were meaningful handicaps and the fall series brought 3 yo's and older together to see who was the best of the season. It just does not happen any longer.

Cigar is ranked 18th on that Bloodhorse top 100 list that came out in 1999. Cigar, John Henry(23rd) and Spectacular Bid(10th) are the only horses in the top 25 of that list to have raced since 1980.

[KirisClown]

Originally Posted by SentToStud

I could be wrong but I beieve the only Eclipse winners Cigar beat were Holy Bull and Heavenly Prize.

Thunder Gulch as well... although im not a big fan of giving a horse too much credit for beating breakdowns..

[blackthroatedwind]

Originally Posted by KirisClown

Thunder Gulch as well... although im not a big fan of giving a horse too much credit for beating breakdowns..

Heavenly Prize at least finished the race. I guess the mighty Cigar didn't break her down like so many others.