bellamy road was retired

[dalakhani]

Originally Posted by Bold Brooklynite

My Rule #1 ...

What a horse does in actual races is all that really counts; "woulda/coulda/shoulda" doesn't count for squat.

My God, BB, if we stick to horses we generally see eye to eye.

There has to be some sort of standard for evaluating quality and/or greatness in race horses. This was discussed extensively on a thread a few weeks ago.

If we dwell on the hypothetical ... we'll get nowhere.

Hoist The Flag may have been the greatest race horse in the history of the world ... may have been ... but he wasn't. He won two stakes races as a 2YO ... and one as a 3YO ... not enough to reach any sort of threshhold.

Stick to what they actually do in races ... and never mind how good they looked walking around the shedrow.

Originally Posted by Bold Brooklynite

There has to be some sort of standard for evaluating quality and/or greatness in race horses. This was discussed extensively on a thread a few weeks ago.

If we dwell on the hypothetical ... we'll get nowhere.

Hoist The Flag may have been the greatest race horse in the history of the world ... may have been ... but he wasn't. He won two stakes races as a 2YO ... and one as a 3YO ... not enough to reach any sort of threshhold.

Stick to what they actually do in races ... and never mind how good they looked walking around the shedrow.

BB,
you are way off base here. His Wood and travers were not theoretical. I watched one on tv, and saw the other one live. I'm quite sure they happened. How many times do you have to see great before you know a horse is great.
Ask anyone who ever saw landaluce run if she was great.

Originally Posted by oracle80

BB,
you are way off base here. His Wood and travers were not theoretical. I watched one on tv, and saw the other one live. I'm quite sure they happened. How many times do you have to see great before you know a horse is great.
Ask anyone who ever saw landaluce run if she was great.

Landaluce had a terrific record as a 2YO in California ... and showed tremendous potential ... which she never got to fulfill ... just like Hoist The Flag whom I cited previously.

Bellamy Road won one G1 race ... and placed in another. It takes a lot of talent to do that ... but that's all he did.

Arts And Letters won 7 G1 races as a 3YO ... including his final 6 in a row ... defeating older champions along the way ... and placed in 5 others earlier in the year. I have no doubt about how good he was.

Originally Posted by Bold Brooklynite

Landaluce had a terrific record as a 2YO in California ... and showed tremendous potential ... which she never got to fulfill ... just like Hoist The Flag whom I cited previously.

Bellamy Road won one G1 race ... and placed in another. It takes a lot of talent to do that ... but that's all he did.

Arts And Letters won 7 G1 races as a 3YO ... including his final 6 in a row ... defeating older champions along the way ... and placed in 5 others earlier in the year. I have no doubt about how good he was.

I have no doubts about Landaluce either.

Originally Posted by oracle80

I have no doubts about Landaluce either.

She never won a race as a 3YO ... or 4YO, 5YO, etc.

She never raced outside of California.

She had a single race around two turns ... which she won by two narrowing lengths over a field nonentities.

She never defeated colts.

She never defeated older fillies and mares.

There IS some room for doubt ... but ... we'll never know until we get to heaven ... or at least I'll find out and let you know.

That's why woulda/shoulda/coulda doesn't ... in fact, can't ... count.

Originally Posted by Dixie Porter

As far as BR, he wouldn't rate in the top 1000 horses that have raced.

That's exactly what I was going to post! But I was beaten to it by the world's second most knowledgable analyst.

Here's how I got there ...

Bellamy Road won one G1 stakes and placed in one other. In an average year ... there are probably about 10 to 20 horses who accomplish that ... or accomplish much more. So ... if we go back to the time when thoroughbred racing became a major organized sport in the United States ... about 1860 say ... there probably have been about 1,500 to 3,000 horses who have done what Bellamy Road did ... or better.

So ... if anyone took the time to research all G1-equivalent winners over the past 145 years ... Bellamy Road would probably rank somewhere around 2000th ....among all American race horses.

Ooops ... this was supposed to be a new thread.