Boulish Luck even ran a well beaten third on the dirt. This is a blasted turf horse from Hong Kong coming in and beating the rest.

I do love how the Euros pronounce Bull.

Yes Bullish Luck was only a turf horse but he is actually quite solid and classy. The class of the World Cup field dropped off a lot after the big three so to speak. Forty Licks? Vermilion? Kandidate? All nice dirt horses but not in the same league. Bullish Luck has successfully competed against the best in Asian turf horses, which as we now know are to be taken seriously.

Kandidate's only a G3 winner on Turf I think... came 2nd or 3rd in th 2000 Guineas in 05 though.. it was funny listening to the experts before the race.. all expected Kandiate to lead with DC just behind.. they werent the only one surprised to see them sitting 2nd last and last for most of the way!!

I can't speak for anyone else, but I've been saying Lava Man sucks for years now, when all the "bandwagoners" you speak of were slobbering over him after every bullshit California win.

I don't remember anyone saying he's easy to beat in California. But I disagree that the presence of Lava Man is the only thing keeping owners from shipping out to Cali.

So because he's a good horse in California, that makes him a good horse? I don't understand your logic. Being a bad horse everywhere else doesn't make him bad, but being a good horse in California makes him good?

Good horses are horses that overcome adversity. If you had a horse that ran huge numbers only when he was loose on the lead on a slow pace, would you call him good? No, because he only runs big when he has things his way. Well, how is Lava Man only winning in familiar surroundings any different?

Why do we have to figure out whether he deserves the label "good" or "bad" at all? I think maybe it is a bit more complex than that. He is one horse in SoCal, and a different horse ouside of it. Why can't we leave it at that? Do we really need to say that on an overall "goodness scale" of 1 through 10 he is a 6.75 or whatever you would rank him?

Amen,a Team!!!

Well then you have been wrong for years now. He is not a great horse because of his limitations. I ripped his connections for sending him to this race. It made no sense. When he is shipped....he stinks. No question about it.
But he doesn't suck. It just doesn't make sense to say that a horse that has won the races which he has won "sucks." Is he overrated? perhaps. Is his competition suspect? yes. Does he suck? Absolutely not.

I knew someone would get on me for saying he sucks. I forget that everyone takes everything literally here every second of every day. What I mean is I think that, in relation to other handicap horses, who actually, you know, ship and win or at least ship and run well, he's insignificant.

And I'm not into labeling horses "good" or "bad" either. I was simply responding to pgardn's post.