Quote:
Originally Posted by brockguy
The last time I can think of a race like this was the 2003 Lockinge when Hawk Wing demolished a proper G1 field and got a ridiculously high mark which was eventually scaled down. However, on some lines of form, he could have been rated the best horse of all time, a bit like Saturday's race.
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The big Hawk Wing win is a lot harder for someone with an American racing background to appreciate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiXbsSCdGLs
It came in one of those goofy straight line no-turn mile races we never see over here - in the rain - and he was allowed a free ride on a totally uncontested early lead.
In our turf races, you tend to get larger margin of victories and gaps between horses in the rare instances that they run while it's raining out.
Hawk Wing rallied from 8th to finish a well clear 2nd on yielding ground in the 12f English Derby .. that huge 8f win was the only time in his life he ever made the lead - and he did it so easily without anyone contesting it and at a distance of just one mile for a horse who had no trouble seeing out 12 furlongs.
Obviously, the performance itself was beyond amazing.. but you did have some smoke and mirrors in play ... while Harbinger came from mid-pack on firm ground in weather conditions that looked picture perfect.
I looked up Hawk Wing's form - and he only ran one more time after this. That start came in the Queen Anne .. where instead of galloping on a loose lead, he was back in mid-pack early. He was beaten double digit lengths in a total non-effort - obviously something BADLY amiss. He never ran again. Tillerman, whom he beat by 24+ lengths in his romp was 2nd in that Queen Anne .. a full 6.5 lengths in front of him.
The Ragozin and Thoro-Graph sheet people who make figures in our country would call that "bouncing to the moon" and they'd probably be bragging on their boards the following day about how they predicted the huge top figure to lead to serious impending doom.