Frankel

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by Indian Charlie

By the way, did you even notice CC badly lugging out in the last 1/4 of the race?

What would you call that?

Would you say that that didn't hurt his chances?

Would you say that didn't affect his finish position, relative to the winner?

Or, are you trying to say that it didn't indicate that maybe something was wrong? That lugging/bearing out that strongly is completely meaningless?

In your post, you even say you understand about not jumping in and taking the time to analyze it, yet when two people do just that, they just are being grumpy old farts that don't want to legitimize a great horse.

You really outdo yourself sometimes.

To answer your questions, this is what I posted on the other thread soon after the race:

Originally Posted by King Glorious

I know that it might just be the moment speaking but I am pretty sure that he's the best miler I've ever seen. If you didn't know how good Canford Cliffs was, you'd have still been impressed. Knowing the quality of CC and how easily he was defeated, maybe it's not just the moment speaking. The only thing that's holding me back is that it's likely that Canford Cliffs was injured during the race looking at the way he was drifting out down the lane.

So yes, I did see him lugging out and I think he may be injured even though nothing has been said yet. So of course I think it affected how big the margin of victory was. But for me, I don't judge how good an effort one horse puts in by what another puts in. If he comes over and wins the BC Mile in 1:31 2/5 and wins by 20, do I say that since the others didn't run so well, it devalues what he did? I don't think so. That's just not how I evaluate a performance.

What I said in the other post was that I do understand that it's always best not to jump to premature opinions without analyzing everything.....but that sometimes you see something that you don't need to spend weeks and years of analyzing the data. Sometimes, you just know what you see right when you see it. Things like Usain Bolt running a race, Albert Pujols at the plate, Michael Jordan with a basketball in his hands....you know greatness when you are watching it. I will agree with you that it takes a longer time, usually until a career is over to accurately try to place a horse's achievements in a historical perspective but I don't think it takes as long to recognize talent. You may believe that it's silly for people to say they think he's one of the great talents they've ever seen. That's a matter of opinion. For whatever it's worth, his trainer says he's the best he's seen and he's been around and had some pretty good ones in his care. In any event, just because some of us disagree with you doesn't mean we don't understand where you are coming from.