I don't think either Fog or Bernardini were overhyped.
Big Brown is a potential superhorse. At this point though, I haven't seen more from him than I have from those two or actually, quite a few others over the past decade. My way of evaluating them is to say that to be even considered a great horse, they have to either beat top competition or run really fast races. It's got to be one or the other, preferrably both. So far, Big Brown has done neither. Maybe there's something to this whole "geared down, not being asked" stuff and there is a lot more in the tank. Maybe not. We all saw Smarty's Preakness. We saw Bernardini's Travers. We saw Point Given's Belmont. These were similar instances where the competition was non-existent but the horse still put on a great performance speed wise. We just haven't seen that yet from Big Brown. I read somewhere that because his career ending is already set and because the Belmont may well be his last race, we may see them let loose with him in that race and then maybe we'll get to see what he's really got. I sure hope so.
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The real horses of the year (1986-2020)
Manila, Java Gold, Alysheba, Sunday Silence, Go for Wand, In Excess, Paseana, Kotashaan, Holy Bull, Cigar, Alphabet Soup, Formal Gold, Skip Away, Artax, Tiznow, Point Given, Azeri, Candy Ride, Smarty Jones, Ghostzapper, Invasor, Curlin, Zenyatta, Zenyatta, Goldikova, Havre de Grace, Wise Dan, Wise Dan, California Chrome, American Pharoah, Arrogate, Gun Runner, Accelerate, Maximum Security, Gamine
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