Spectacular Bid VS Seattle Slew

[Danzig]

i read that the man o war travers is still the fastest six furlong time for the winning horse. a lot of man o war stuff is suspect, all we have is what's left us in books. i doubt anyone is still alive who saw him run. but you'd have to think there's something to a horse that would cause people to still use him as a measuring stick decades (and soon enough, a century) later.
all you can go by is time, weights, starts in an abbreviated season (i believe man's first start was the preakness-his starts were close together to get 21 races in two years, and start that late)....the fact that the 'capper was going to put more weight on MOW than had been put on a horse before, causing his retirement.

[Betsy]

Originally Posted by Danzig

i read that the man o war travers is still the fastest six furlong time for the winning horse. a lot of man o war stuff is suspect, all we have is what's left us in books. i doubt anyone is still alive who saw him run. but you'd have to think there's something to a horse that would cause people to still use him as a measuring stick decades (and soon enough, a century) later.
all you can go by is time, weights, starts in an abbreviated season (i believe man's first start was the preakness-his starts were close together to get 21 races in two years, and start that late)....the fact that the 'capper was going to put more weight on MOW than had been put on a horse before, causing his retirement.

That's how I look at it - the handicapper, by the way, was Walter Vosburgh.

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by Danzig

a lot of man o war stuff is suspect, all we have is what's left us in books.

We still have a lot of charts, past performances, and columns from respected writers of the day - the only thing missing is film of his actual races.

Man O' War's connections ducked Exterminator all the time. Man O' War was weighted at 114lbs for the Suburban - getting a 15lbs break from the high weight at 129lbs. They ducked facing older comeptition - even with the scales in their favor - for attempts at setting speed records or winning important 3yo races all year.

Racing against a stop-watch over tracks that often played much faster than par the day he ran - that doesn't impress me anyway.

Here is a cut of a column from Jan of his 4yo season - famous turf writer John Hervey calls the match-race with Sir Barton a "circus"



In terms of setting track records and world recorlds - Man O' War was Babe Ruth .. I'm not even sure Swaps, Dr. Fager, Secretariat, and Spectacular Bid can quite compare with him in that regard. However, to rate as the greatest horse of all-time, you should have to prove a lot against the best possible competition. Winning a silly match race and owning a crop of just 1,680 total horses isn't impressive at all to say the least.