How do you.....

[King Glorious]

I think that the thing people need to do is understand the difference between what you THINK is great or could be great and what's PROVEN as great. On the first list, I have horses like Java Gold and King Glorious. They wouldn't make the second list though.

I also believe that it's unfair to compare horses of different eras because so many things that are out of the horses control have changed. It's not fair, for example, to give a horse from the 60's more credit for carrying high weights when a horse in today's era never gets that same chance. I feel like to assume that they COULDN'T do it is not fair at all. It's not right to downgrade a Bernardini or Curlin (maybe) because they didn't race as 4yo's. Many of the greats of the past, if they ran in today's era, would not race at the age of four either. I think that in order to properly judge them, one has to look at how they fare against the other horses in their era and not the ones from past ones.

Look at baseball for example.
1968 Bob Gibson led the league in ERA at 1.12
Second place was 1.60
The top 10 were all at 2.08 or better.
Seven guys under 2.00
League ERA was 2.98

1994 Greg Maddux led in 1.56
Second place was 2.65
There were only eight players under 3.00
League ERA was 4.51

2000 Pedro Martinez led at 1.74
Second place was 2.58
There were only four players under 3.00
League ERA was 4.77

Looking at it based solely on raw numbers, one would see Gibson's 1.12 and figure he had the best season. But when you look deeper, you see that in comparison to their peers, Maddux and Martinez had far more dominant years.

Same goes with these horses. They've got to be judged under the conditions of their times and not against others. If they go above and beyond what is normal for good horses of their time, they've done all they can do and deserve some consideration for that.