You know he is one of my favorite horses ever... I tryed coming back to DT one time as BernardiniGOAT...I was told it would cause an uproar. No excuse letting Invasor run you down.

You don't think she woulda beaten a 3yo Cat Theif?

In that race. On Saturday. You don't think all of those three are in front of Blame? I know you can't be, but for just once, try to be objective.

Why not, what was wrong with Invasor?

He reminds me a lot of Blame. His nose win over Sun King does not make me think best of the past 5 years.

Bernardini and Curlin for sure, assuming they run there A race.

but Zenyatta's win over Rinterval does?!

OOOOOOHHHHH!!!! Burn.

Not really, I guess...

Yeah, because that's all he did in his career. Invasor is pretty much a different species from Blame. And for all of everyone's excuses about Zenyatta's trip/not handling the track, Bernardini looked like he was spinning his wheels and then got the typical early move ride from Castellano that day.

invasor skipped a race prior to the bc with a sickness..but came back strong

He was in an all out drive and looked empty... Something was not right, I take it back about him not showing up. He did not handle something, but still kicked in.

I can't believe no one has gone near this idiocy. I don't even really know if Cigar is considered an all time great, but the quality of horses he beat consistently, all across the country and world is head and shoulders better than what Zenyatta has. He had clearly lost a step by the '96 Classic and was hung out wide for a long time. He ran pretty big all things considered.

I personally liked him and thought he was very good horse. The one race that sticks out to me was the 2007 Donn. I know he beat no one, but the way Garcia steadied and basically stopped him and then have him re-rally on the rail made me believe he was indeed that good.

As someone who's first job was to rake horsesh*t out of stalls at Arlington when I was a 14 year old kid, I would have thought I would have moved on to better and more profitable vices by now. It didn't happen and I'm so thankful for it.

Along the way, while chasing the horses, I have met my best friends, taken some memorable road trips and have stored up a closet full of memories and laughs. I have gotten to see Secretariat run on a couple of occasions, watched Ruffian run the last strides of her life and have seen most all of the other champions since run once or twice. And on Saturday while in the grandstands I saw Zenyatta come down the stretch at Churchill Downs.

Is Zenyatta the greatest mare of all time? Doubtful.
Is she the Horse of the Year? Don't know and don't care.

But on Saturday for the second year in a row I saw her in person on racing's biggest stage in front of the game's largest audience run down the lane and stand the hair on the back of everyone's neck on end.

How do you measure greatest in a race horse? Don't know.
But I KNOW I saw it Saturday.

Gread read, this gave me chills.

:rolleyes:

The bottom line from this weekend...

Zenyatta silenced her critics. She's legit. She ran huge. She will always be a victim of her style, but that's how it goes. Teams live by their offense, or die by their defense... visa-versa. The good ones overcome, which she did all 20 times. Unfortunately for her, Blame fired huge. He heard her coming too, dug-in, held his lead before, on and after the wire. Losing by a nose to him in today's racing game is no slouch.

As for the Horse of the Year, anyone but Blame receiving the honor would be a tragedy. Horse of the Year rewards accomplishments, which in this game, is about winning. And when winning counted most, it was Blame.

It scares me that this might even be a close vote.

When your favorite horse runs in 2-3 meaningful races her entire career, you really have to make stretches to compare her to the greats. Clearly if Cigar one time lost to a ho-hum Classic winner, that makes him equal to Zenyatta. Nevermind what the two of them did through the rest of their careers.

I was thinking about it, but I didn't know where to begin.