Curlin's Legacy
 

I have a hard time putting him as one of the best all time, first off because i dont go that far back, and second off i dont think he was even 1-2 in his crop. Retirements kill this sport, Hard Spun, Street Sense and Rags to Riches were all monsters, none of them returned to the track this year. Of the recent horses that i can compare him to, i dont think he was any better then Street Cry,Point Given, Bernardini even Invasor seemed to do it more powerfully then Curlin, Ghostzapper, Roses in May, i dont know, maybe im wrong, but i cant see how Curlin can be a All Time great when one could argue that he's not even top 10 in the last 10 years.

[quote=hrfan]I have a hard time putting him as one of the best all time, first off because i dont go that far back, and second off i dont think he was even 1-2 in his crop. Retirements kill this sport, Hard Spun, Street Sense and Rags to Riches were all monsters, none of them returned to the track this year. Of the recent horses that i can compare him to, i dont think he was any better then Street Cry,Point Given, Bernardini even Invasor seemed to do it more powerfully then Curlin, Ghostzapper, Roses in May, i dont know, maybe im wrong, but i cant see how Curlin can be a All Time great when one could argue that he's not even top 10 in the last 10 years.[/QUOTE

one of the best of all time-no

1-2 in his crop-yes

top ten in THIS decade-yes you could make that argument

so he is def. better then Hard Spun, Street Sense and Rags To Riches ? Or is it the fact that they retired and he continues to beat up on weak competition like many ppl on this site have said. I will stick to the best horse he has beat this year is Well Armed. What is that really saying ?

i think they were all nice horses in there own right that 3 year old year from the list you mention.

i would only put rags above him maybe not just because of the belmont win but her other impressive wins and thats a maybe.

i have to think that hard spun and street sense if given the chance to go into thier 4 year old year, they might have declined also as curlin might be right now also. could they have survived the trip to dubai and come back as well as curlin has .to continue to win-maybe but not against curlin i don't think.
i do believe this bunch in the classic is at its all time low for quality in competition for him to race against-big advantage

i believe he can only race with whats out there and he would fit in fine with some of the other horses thru the years.

sometimes horses step up to thier competition and curlin if he had to could have picked it up against some of the others.

mind you i still think ghostzapper was the best of this decade.

and if commentator could have stayed healthy could have had a more stellar record then he has, and i think he has been very impressive thruout his career.
these 2 where very versatile

but i thinking is he is a very good horse as i said could have stepped up if need be but thats just my opinion

i think everyone including myself gets critical of a top horse when they are running and starts to compare back . the freahest races in your mind are the ones you just seen run, and if they don't look stellar you start to question. but if we could go back some of the others had less then desirable races also.

when all is said and done and we look back at him in 4 or 5 years we will appreciate him along with some of the other top horses of this decade.

i think he deserves his props

I think he was better than those. Remember he didn't start at 2 and only had 3 starts when the triple crown rolled around. Considering that, his performance through those three races was outstanding. By the end of the year, yes, he was a notch above those others. RTR was a phenomenal filly, while Hard Spun and Street Sense were very good 3yo colts that had their moments, but not great ones.

hes ok..look at the attrition rate..if most of the crop had stayed healthy and didnt go off to breeding would curlin be that great..i say no..

Curlin = Ashado

Quality Grade 1 talent with sub par competition... Real nice horses but certainly products of the era. Neither of the two above were exceptionally fast, both beat a bunch suspect stock often enough to have records which inflate their earnings and legend among masses.

Hard Spun was a pretty talented horse and most likely was better suited for 7 to 9 furlong races.. Not sure Curlin would have been competitive at a mile against Hard Spun.. Not sure Hard Spun would have much success against Curlin at 10F's either.. Hard Spun was a pretty neat colt with a lot of natural speed.

[quote=DaHoss9698]1.

4. If Curlin was by Giant's Causeway, would he be thought of higher?



Yeah those Smart Strikes are ice cold...lol

I think Curlin was better than Street Sense but I don't know if it can really be said it was proven. Street Sense beat Curlin decisively in the Derby, Curlin beat Street Sense by a head in the Preakness. People want to use the BC Classic as the tiebreaker but we all know that Street Sense hates the slop. Hell, he lost to Officer Rocket and Gotthelastlaugh on it during his champion 2yo season. And it isn't like Curlin was the only one to beat him in the Classic.

Curlin was named HOY over the other three. I think that SS had peaked by the time he ran the Travers and that Rags, post injury was not likley to come back as well, and that HS, as game as he was was better suited to 8 and 9f and that had he run this year Jones was hoping to try him as a grass miler. Based on how they finished the year last year, I couldn't see any of that trio threatening Curlin this season, though it would have been nice of them to try.

[quote=DaHoss9698]
No I got it I was referring to his madness not yours..

I think Smart Strike is as hot a stallion in the market his fee has gone from like 20 to 150k in like 5 years.. GC while a terriffic stallion isn't currently as hot as Smart strike

You could argue Curlin tailed off, too (at least during the summer). Didn't everyone write him off as some sort of grinder after his modest Haskell effort?

Also, though they pad his resume now, weren't the JCGC and BC Classic wins considered mild upsets (in the sense that Lawyer Ron was odds-on at Belmont and Curlin was 3rd or 4th choice in the Classic) at the time?

Either way, had Street Sense returned at 4, I think he would have beaten Curlin more times than not in races contested at 9f. Further than that and the reverse would be likely.

I don't know that the argument of Curlin tailing off is feasible, at least not to those who didn't write him off as a grinder-type or think he was beginning to tail off after the Haskell. Personally, I didn't write him off due to either, especially him being some sort of grinder. If the tailing off argument was out there, I think the JCGC put that to rest. To my surprise, I didn't hear the "grinder" argument. Most qualified opinions I heard were not along those lines at all. I also think during the summer, many people got caught up in the Lawyer Ron monster performances, and they were nothing short of being that. Maybe it was horse for course, a freak thing, or I don't know what.

As far as Street Sense coming back at 4 -- well, what should have, could have, would have . . . Unfortunately we'll never know. Last year, I thought throughout the year, Curlin was getting better. He was gaining experience, seasoning, battle scars, etc. Personally, I don't feel I can say the same thing about Street Sense.

I'm sorry it's something that has to be hypothesized. Excellent points though, and thanks.

Eric

I think Curlin was the top 3yo of last year but I don't think it was definititve. A short nose in the Preakness and he would have had a losing record against Street Sense. The dominance of the BC Classic is what seemed to make everyone think it was definitive but because of the track conditions, I don't know if you can say that. While I don't hold it against him that he lost to a filly in the Belmont because I thought that filly was top class, even if the results would have been reversed and it was his head in front at the wire, the tight finish in the race would have further proved that while he was the best, the margin was close.

As for this year, I'm not fooled. I haven't seen a better horse this year than I saw in the fall of last year. I like to see improvement from the 3yo to 4yo season and I just haven't. I've seen a horse that's beat up on third rate competition all year long. Obviously, who he faces is not something that's in his control but his performances are and they just haven't done it for me. The sad thing is that the state of the game is so bad right now that he's still the leading candidate for HOY.

I'd go with saying he was the best of last year's 3yo class. He is arguably among the top 10 of the 2000's (although off the top of my head, I just came up with six I'd put ahead of him and that was with little thought). One of the all-time greats? Not in the opinion of this guy. Of all of the horses that I've personally watched in the 22 years I've been following horses, I'd guess Curlin might fall in the 51-75 range. That's really disappointing to me because after watching his Arkansas Derby, I would have thought he was surely on his way to my personal all-time top 20, at least.

After the DWC I was ready to anoint him as a great horse. His four races since have been nothing more than workmanlike. He does do one thing though. He wins. I don't think anyone can name a horse that came back from Dubai and performed at the same level. Cigar started tailing of a little. So did Silver Charm. Street Cry showed great promise but didn't win after the Foster. Pleasantly Perfect was affected. As was Roses in May.

With that said, I love the horse and hope he kicks ass in the BCC.

BTW, where the hell is Lincoln Fields?

I don't agree that Cigar tailed off. He just faced better horses in the fall of 1996 than he was facing in 1995. In 1995, the other horses to hit the board in the JCGC and BC Classic were Unaccounted For, Star Standard, and La Carriere. In 1996, it was Skip Away, Louis Quatorze, and Alphabet Soup. Compare the records of the two sets of horses. Perhaps if the two seasons had been switched around, Cigar would have never won 16 in a row and it would look like he got better in 1996. He ran his 1996 Woodward a touch faster than 1995. His 1996 JCGC was faster than the previous year also. Better competition will always make a horse look worse than when he's facing mediocre comp.

Good post.. I never agreed that Cigar tailed off.. If he did, where did his 96 Woodward effort come from?

ok by the time he had the arlington cigar challenge he could have been beat by any number of horses......i was there he was not at all impressive

But then he came back and ran Skip Away to a neck in the JCGC while giving him five pounds and running faster than he had the year before. And we know what kind of horse Skip Away was. Skip Away, Louis Quatorze, and Alphabet Soup were light years better than what he was facing in 1995. If he would have had a chance to face his 1995 competition again in the fall of 1996, he would have had repeat wins in those races. Who knows how 1995 would have played out had Holy Bull not been injured?

That's what I was getting at by mentioning the 96 Woodward... sandwiched between his losses he looks like the Cigar of old beating up on his friends L'Carriere and Golden Larch...

This is not the race of a horse tailing off.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raK2IZE4Bik

by the same token, his win over hard spun in the bcc was about the same as street sense in the derby. they all traded wins over each other. hard to say really who would have been best this year, since only one of the top five from last year is around. i think it may well have been more of the same.
certainly would have been more interesting than what we've had.

I agree. SS was not very sound at 3 and Carl did a great job with him. Let's face it, while his Travers looked impressive, the horse he barely beat has not covered himself in glory since. In fact, I don't think Grasshopper has won a race since that allowance at the Spa. Hard Spun was never in danger from Street Sense at Turfway and while mud was not he's best surface, he was very dull at Monmouth.
Overall I'd say SS was never has good as he looked at Churchill and never as bad as he looked at Monmouth.

You're right as far as his Saratoga performances leaving a bit to be desired, but at Turfway, he was likely "prepping" (as he did at Keeneland), typical of Carl Nafzger leading up to big races (see Unbridled and Banshee Breeze also).

Even still, the Saratoga races can be forgiven in that the Jim Dandy was a comeback race and, though you can certainly disagree, the Travers was too far. In the BC Classic, he made his move alongside Curlin but the distance and likely the "tired horse" factor came into play (not to mention the surface).

Anyways, what was being assumed with Street Sense at 4 was that he would obviously get a break after the BC and would be 100% at the start of his campaign. I'd imagine he'd uncork efforts similar to the ones Victory Gallop displayed in 1999 (all 2 or 3 of them).

Yeah. He wasn't himself at Monmouth.

Probably cuz he never ran there...

Didn't he run in the classic there last year?

Brutal. I had it in my head that Linny was talking about Hard Spun in the Haskell. Talk about eating sh!t...

Calgon...take my post away!

1. Quiet Chris ... lol

2. Can't say for sure since Curlie was pharmacologically-altered by virtue of his abusive 'roid regimen last season. Haven't found any evidence that either SS or HS received injections of an anabolic steroid on a regular basis.

By the way, could Curlie's acceleration issues this season have anything to do with his being off the 'program'?

3. HS threw some nice performances at various distances and held up well all season long ... likely without the help of anabolic steroids. Not saying he was superior to Curlie ... just that it's difficult to compare a chemically-altered athlete to one that probably wasn't enhanced by steroids.

4. No opinion

5. Good question

If someone is pressed for time, though, I would suggest just watching all of Ghostzapper's races beginning with the '03 King's Bishop. He/she will learn a lot about the following thoroughbred traits: speed, class, brilliance, determination, versatility, stamina.

Would've made Curlie look like a Chuck Town claimer.

6. Don't know much about this Mambo beast, but if he runs in the BCC and finishes ahead of Curlie (and Big Brownroid for that matter) he'll be okay in my book.

Yeah, seeing those two 'roid freaks go down at the BC ... wouldn't that be a great way to usher out the despicable steroid abuse era in thoroughbred racing...

Greeley's Legacy

trust that hard spun recieved some steroids.

steroids aren't even considered cheating to most of these trainers. Most of the big money operations give regular steroids after races and some after works as well.
It is true that some trainers give steroids more often, but it seems to hurt longevity of the horse. I would guess that most of the more frequent doses are with fillies and claimers.

Hard Spun was a great animal. He got some bad rides in some of his biggest races (preakness, belmont, breeders cup).
Pino and Gomez had one of the triple crown colts with the most stamina at a classic distance looking like a miler to many observers.

He was never developed as a turf division older horse. If you think about the way Sunriver was used, you could have thrown Dominguez on Hard Spun's back in 2008 and you might have been headed for the BC Turf as the favorite.

However, Larry Jones did his job and HS got his stud deal. It's hard to really complain when they accomplished their business objective. They danced a lot of dances, it was a respectable 3yo season.

Another "Worst BC Favorites" thread stowaway?