Whose was/is the best?
 

Alot of talk about present day horses, so who do you think was the best:

Sprint Horse
Distanse Horse (besides Secretariat)
Turf Horse

Bring it on...I'll have to think it over to make my selections

The Best
 

OK, here are the four best:

http://www.fantasy-horse-racing.com/SingingHorse.asp

I think as far as sprinters go, the Tom Fool is going to have a lot to say about this year's Sprint Division. If either Silver Train, Anew or War Front run huge today, they would establish themselves as possible favorites for the BC Sprint. I see it as a race between the early speed of War Front and the closing kick of Silver Train. Conditions and track seem to be fair, may the best horse win.

The word "great" is tossed around much too lightly. I only use it for horses who were either champions each year they raced ... or who lost a championship to another great race horse ... and raced at least two full years.

I've been following the game since 1958 ... here's my list of great male dirt horses since then ...

1958: Three greats in one year ... Bold Ruler, Round Table, and Gallant Man.
1959: Sword Dancer ... one the the best 3YOS ever ... but not champion at 2, 4 ... margin of greatness ... but not quite.
1960: Kelso was HOTY five times ... can't do better than that.
1961: Carry Back was champion 3YO and outstanding at 2, 4 & 5. Another marginal great.
1966: Buckpasser ... champion at 2, 3, and 4.
1967: Another banner year with three greats ... Damascus, Dr. Fa-ger, In Reality.
1969: Arts And Letters ... another super 3YO and marginal great.
1973: Another banner year ... Secretariat and Forego ... five straight HOTY between them.
1977: Seattle Slew ... champion at 2, 3, and 4.
1978: The great duo of Affirmed and Alydar.
1979: Spectacular Bid ... runaway champion at 2, 3, & 4.

That's it ... there hasn't been a truly great male dirt race horse since then.

Those who have come close ... Spend A Buck, Slew O' Gold, Alysheba, Sunday Silence, Easy Goer, Holy Bull, Cigar, Skip Away, Silver Charm, Point Given.

Of those ... Sunday Silence, Easy Goer, and Skip Away were the best.

As talented as Point Given was, I would hesitate to put him in the same group as Cigar and Skip Away. he didnt stick around long enough and really besides Monarchos, who did he ever beat with any real talent? E Dubai, Touch Tone? Cmmon. Probablt the most stunning visual move I have ever seen by a 3 year old but he quit before the hard stuff started. Skip Away and Cigar stuck around and even faced each other once where Skippy beat him convincingly.

Point Given was a teriffic 3 year old but I wouldnt call him a great horse. Skip Away was a great horse.

Well, folks who know me know that I maintain a list of "100 Greatest" in history of racing...always fun to post it and listen to folks complain when their personal favorite is ranked lower than they think or...god forbid...not at all! I've done the homework and can defend every ranking but it really is quite arbitrary, the further back in history one goes, the more subjective you become...anyway, my top 20 are:
1. Secretariat/ Kincsem (tie)
3. Ribot
4. Citation
5. Man O War
6. Flying Childers
7. Sea Bird
8. Eclipse
9. Native Dancer
10. Count Fleet
11. Spectacular Bid
12. St Simon
13. Kelso
14. War Admiral
15. Seattle Slew
16. Ruffian
17. Affirmed
18. Colin
19. Dr Fager
20. Exterminator

C/H: Dr. Fager (S).. Kelso (D).. Round Table (T)..

F/M: Ta Wee (S).. Gallorette (D).. Makybe Diva (T)..

I think it is funny that you just concede distance horse to Secretariat, that it is just a given that he was the best ever....Within a week or two I will be giving a breakdown of how it isn't so cut and dry.

Need to study
 

You guys are either very old or more connected to the history of horses. Now I'm going to have to get Steve Crist's book out and cap 100 years of racing. Actually that sounds pretty good. I know my favorite (maybe not the best) was Cigar as well as John Henry.

I'll be back to you with my picks.

Hmmm ... how do you manage to compare horses which ran 4-mile heats on turf in 18th-century England ... to horses which ran on turf in central Europe in the 19th century ... to horses which ran on dirt in the United States in the 20th century?

Neat trick ... please tell us all how you did it.

Yeah ... you're probably right ... but I thought I'd try to squeeze a 21st-century horse onto the list. This hasn't exactly been the century of champions so far.

But I did mistakenly leave Ghostzapper off my list. He definitely belongs on there.

Some of us are very old and some are on crack.

I think I used words such as "arbitrary" and "subjective" in my original post. It is a neat trick and, in the end, it's one guy's opinion. I look at the entire picture, especially to what extent they dominated other horses...add to that how history has treated them and, with more recent ones, what I saw when I watched them run. Kincsem gave huge weight to males, traveled all over Europe and never lost a race...I mean 168 pounds, come now!! Her reputation is the stuff of legends...grazing unconcerned while the field broke to start the race, galloping to victory, traveling all over Europe at a time when you didn't simply hop a jet...how great was she???

Equally relevant ... how great was her competition?

A string of victories like that is nothing short of stunning ... but how can we be sure she wasn't the Lost In The Fog/Andy Kaufman of her day ... beating up on chumps?

And Flying Childers? Did he even race against thoroughbreds? The breed hadn't even been formalized then. And what leads you to believe he was better than Eclipse ... when contemporaries of that era thought Eclipse was incomparable?

Your all-encompassing global efforts are ambitious .. to say the least ... but when you become that subjective ... don't you risk losing perspective?

It's difficult enough to restrict it to classic-distance male American horses on dirt for the past 50 years ... without adding a couple of centuries ... another continent ... marathon distances ... heat racing ... both sexes ... and different surfaces.

And speaking of other continents ... where is Phar Lap on your list?

But I did mistakenly leave Ghostzapper off my list. He definitely belongs on there.

Yes indeed. Ghostzapper is a lot more worthy than Point Given.

I have Phar Lap at #32, just after Pot8os at #31. FYI, Elusive Pimpernel came in at #99 with Sinndar and Giants Causeway tied at #100.

What about Zippy Chippy?

My first pick
 

As for the best horse of all time what about Red Rum? The horse only won the Grand National (Aintree, England) three times and came in second twice out of five runs. This is a race that is about 4 1/2 miles has, I don't know 26 jumps and usually 45 horses start and maybe 9 finish. It's the only race you can smoke two cigarttees watching it. This horse was really something! Raced 100 times and won 28 times and second 37 times. And that was flat, steple chace and hurdles. And this wasn't 100 years ago but in the 70's.

Where's Tiznow on the all most list. BC Classic two years in a row and defeated some good stock doing it. I know there has been some great horses from over seas over the years also. I myself like the ones who've made me money over the years. Silver Charm, Spain, Free House, Cat Thief, Thunder Gulch and the back bone of racing the little cheap claimers who go into the gates 15 to 20 times a year. I love the Claiming Crown races and think they need more of the them for the little guys. It's like the Manhattan Handicap giving away a 500k purse and they let the little guys suffer all year long with a average day pusre below 100k.

OK ... I completely agree with each of those rankings.

So ... where do you have Barcaldine, Flying Fox, Ormonde, Hindoo, Commando, Galopin, Hamburg, St. Frusquin, Springfield, Rock Sand, Bahram, Cyllene, Hyperion, Isinglass, Carbine, and Mayan King?

And shouldn't your #31 horse be spelled "Pot-oooooooo" as it was originally scrawled outside his stall?

And how long do you think it will be before all thoroughbreds trace directly from Whalebone?

And what about Arkle?

Many I don't have in top 100...Hyperion is #35, Ormonde is #36, and Isinglass is #46. Potoooooooo's name was shortened to Pot8os I believe by his groom (not sure) and he's usually referred to thusly. Over 90% of all modern sires already trace to Whalebone. The son of Waxy, he the son of Pot8os...Pot8os of course the son of the great Eclipse!

Sommer
Thanks for including Exterminator.100 starts 50 wins 17 seconds and 17 thirds is absolutely amazing to me. Won at distances ranging from 6f to 2 miles and "Old Bones" is my favorite though he probably wasn't the 'greatest' ever.
What a thrill it must have been to be the owner of a horse who finished in the money 84 times out of 100.

Google Arkle. BB I'm impressed

Even tho he was a late blommer Ill take Tiznow ahead of the Zapper and PG. When he retired he was beating all commers.

I honestly believe that Tiznow is the most underrated horse of the past 25 years, I rank him #33 and feel very strongly that he could have been even better than that! Point Given impressed me greatly as well, he receives a #47 ranking despite not facing older; Ghostzapper was an excellent horse but is not ranked.

It's also a fact that the connections of Man O War ducked this horse....he was a warrior!

Arkle stands alone over fences, I only include horses who raced over the flat in my rankings!

Arkle is ridicously famous here.. Great story of him being fed 2 bottles of Guinness a day.. He simply was extraordinary giving other champions of his era 28pounds or more over 3miles plus and destroying them.. Cant be compared with flat but any jumps fan would tell you that he is the best ever, Only Flyingbolt comes close.


On the flat, Id regard Ribot, Sea Bird as the best turf horses there has ever been, both unbelievable racehorses!

It took you long enough ... but ...

... stick around ... you'll be typing those words a lot.

In fact ... it may be easier if you just copy and paste them after each of my posts.

Well ... at least you're making some distinctions ... instead of trying to evaluate every single thoroughbred who has ever been registered ... and even some who raced before there was a registry.

But you still haven't told us your evaluation method. For instance ... why is Hyperion on the list ... while Bahram isn't ... when every knowledgable British authority of the 1930's rated Bahram as being much better?

And ... how did you compare Flying Childers ... a British foal of 1715 who competed in only three competitive races at ages 6 and 7 ... facing a total of four opponents ... with, say, Forego ... an American foal of 1970 ... who competed 57 times from 3 to 8 ... and faced hundreds of opponents ... and conclude that Flying Childers was the better race horse?

And how did you compare Henry Of Navarre with Lammtarra ... and which did you conclude was better?

I think that Spectacular Bid was the greatest route horse ever to set foot on the racetrack. After doing some research and reading about him, I think he was even better than Secretariat.

Tiznow is 33.....Point Given is 47....Ghostzapper not in the top 100.

That's funny.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions, and I am impressed with you volumous knowledge of racing history, but the above mentioned ratings are what's known in the handicapping community as a " bad opinion ".

I suppose if he had been grazing while giving a field of five claimers a head start he could have moved into the top 20?

If one is going to rank horses on some list, then one simply must also provide their criterion to support those rankings...otherwise, said rankings are no more than an anal extraction.

I'm only going to go back to 1980, since other than the TC races, I didn't follow racing before then:

Distance: (male) Spectacular Bid (female) Princess Rooney
Sprinter: (male) Artax (female) Safely Kept
Turf: (male) tie- Manila & John Henry (female) Miesque

You're undoubtedly basing your opinion on the great year Spectacular Bid had as a 4YO.

While they were about equal as 2YOS ... there's no comparison as 3YOS ... Secretariat was much, much better.

Secretariat was unable to race as a 4YO because of pre-Reagan socialist death taxes. A straight-up comparison of what they did at comparable ages ... shows Secretariat winning ... ridden out.

I will be making this case soon. Doing a write-up. But I agree with you. Can't say he was the best ever, but can say he was better than Secretariat.

No you can't ... not on what he did as a 2YO and 3YO.

Secretariat's achievements tower over those of Spectacular Bid at comparable ages.

My point was that everyone puts Secretariat on top of their lists as the best ever, but if you look upon the history of the sport, I think that there are others that could deservedly fill that top spot other than Secretariat.

Okay...they both had 12 starts in their three year old year.

Secretariat won 9.

Spectacular Bid won 10.

Two Year Old Year.

Secretariat won 7 out of 9.

Spectacular Bid won 7 out of 9.
However SB set two new track records that two year old season. Secretariat didn't set any records.