Frankel

[PatCummings]

Originally Posted by Mawhip

Cansfield Cliffs put a whipping on the great Goldikova in his previous start.

Canford Cliffs beat Goldikova by 3/4 of a length...and FWIW, Peslier was a pound over. Hardly a whipping. Cape Blanco comes back to run well, then wins a G1 in America.

Now onto more topics, and in defense of Calzone Lord...

I can sit back and, with absolutely no worry, enjoy that performance and the race itself. It was a beauty...............

But I am completely, overwhelmingly, UNWILLING to hand out superlatives like the rest of the 21st century yahoos who, in this 24-7 media world, always need to find some degree of how one particular entity (horse, race, ride...in racing parlance, or anything else in the world of sport) is a crowning achievement, the best of the best, etc. Hell, five hours after the call was made, SportsCenter was anointing that home plate play in the 19th inning of the Pirates/Braves game as possibly the worst call EVER! EVER!!!!!!! That's a lot of flippin history of dunce umpiring, not to mention this call was made at 2am.

When I see comments from people that they were crying about this win (as I saw on Facebook), and that some thought they'd never see anything like it again when Goldikova won 3 BC Miles, and suddenly, seven months later they are spewing forth with another round of superlatives for a horse whose career has spanned eight races in 11 months.

Henry Cecil has the right to call Frankel the best horse he's ever laid eyes on, presuming (he's trained many champions, and he has that right) you expect him to know his own stock. But in terms of the rest of us hacks, trying to put perspective on a performance...how about we all use the best modifier for lending perspective...TIME.

Let TIME go by before we declare some of these horses, through eight freakin races, truly great, the best of all time, the supreme champion.

You know why we have to wait? Cause the jolly criers are going to be all aflutter when the next amazing horse of a lifetime crops up next year, or this year, or hasn't debuted yet, or two years from now, etc, etc, etc. A year ago, no one ever heard of Frankel the horse...TIME will tell, and pardon me if happiness in my racing mind isn't sated with another overwhelming superlative. I'll enjoy it for what it was, but reserve personal judgment and superlatives for the passage of time and more experience. It's sensible, rational, and just makes the most damn sense. Those lobbing the ridiculous praise...I'll keep shaking my head and paying no attention to them.