This talk about RA being better than...
 

Just listening to ATR with DrugS and that first caller.

Comparing RA to SBD or R2R is one thing, but GFW and Ruffian? That seems very premature at this point.

I'm pretty confident that the trio of Inside Information, Sardula and Lakeway, when they were right, were better.

I don't see it as a stretch saying that RA is better than SBD, but Doug's assessment that she's better than Rags at distances up to 1 1/4 miles seems pretty dodgy.

One thing people don't take into account is that Rags was making only her sixth start when she won the Belmont, with that being her fourth straight grade one win.

Rachel Alexandra, on the other hand, had six starts just as a two year old. She had far more seasoning by this point in their respective careers and until Saturday was facing far less talented fields of runners than Rags had been.

I'd also like to point out that Rags maiden win going 7f at SA (dirt) was spectacular. I would say RA would have a tactical advantage in a 7-8f race but by no means would she be a lock.

I think had Rags not gotten hurt (or Pletchers barn gone south?) her career would have been something truly special.

quite a possibility. sadly, we'll never know.
i think comparing to go for wand or ruffian would be premature. to horses such as personal ensign and genuine risk as well. BUT, it remains to be seen. we know what those horses did, of course rachel is still a work in progress. she's generating lots of excitement, moreso it seems in the press than rags did....the attempt to keep her out of the preakness only produced that much more interest in the race. there is no such thing as bad p.r.

as for facing more talent til saturday, that may be the case. but i thought rachel ran an outstanding race in md. that at least puts her on par with rags at this point, if not slightly ahead.

Yes and if Jordan wouldn't have retired the first time he would've won 12 championships.

Irrelevant.

Hey it's relevant because it doesn't mean jack and s.hit other than what if and woulda, coulda, shoulda.

Yeah, I made a point to say that Ruffian, Genuine Risk, and GFW were all before my time and I couldn't compare them with RA. I think Kaspet pretty much agreed with me.

But hey, I also made a point to say that Mine That Bird and Musket Man both share a May 10th birthday and that Pioneer of the Nile (May 5th) was the oldest runner to hit the board in the Derby. I'm big on horsey birthdays don't ya know.

Rachel Alexandra certainly would have defeated R2R at 9fs and very likely would have at 10fs in a fairly run race. At 12 furlongs .. you have an aggressive speedy MDO out of a Roar mare against an Ap Indy out of Demoiselle winning and Belmont Stakes producing mare who had good tactical speed and was an excellent finisher ... I'd take R2R at that distance.

That's just all plain nuts, and you know it.

In a fairly run race at 9f (you say 10) Rags probably wins more often than not. In a typical paceless 9f race, yeah, RA would have a big edge.

Going 10 or longer, RA would have to have everything go her way. Rags certainly would have beaten her in the Preakness Saturday.

Taking that approach towards anything having to do with racing would make any and all talk pointless. And yeah, I know there is no way to accurately compare horses that ran in different years but that's the a big part of why people post on boards like these. It's fun.

I loved Rags To Riches chances in the Belmont .. I said right after her Oaks win that running her in the Belmont was the prudent spot .. I thought that way because I projected improvement off of her very good form at commonly run distances.

However, her career form at commonly run distances wasn't as good as RA's form.

I would not only take RA over R2R at 9fs but also SBD over her at 9fs.

Very much disagree. There wasn't many beating her on Saturday, or the previous Friday's Oaks, either.

I think Drugs is spot on with his analysis of R2R vs. RA re: distances.

I/C,

To this point in their careers, Rachel Alexandra is very comparable to Go for Wand.

One of the problems with truly determining how good R2R and RA truly are is the competition just not being very good. In the case of R2R, Pletcher had ALL the top 3yo fillies that year, and hated to run them against each other... and Rachel just makes her weak competition look silly.

As long as they pointed out that she couldn't warm up Ruffian it's fine.

Why do I doubt they did that?

lol

because it's espn. because most people were thinking 'ruff---who?'

ruffian vs rachel...no contest. NONE.

Whoppdee ding dong. I told you she was an immortal lock to win the oaks after she broke her maiden. What does that get us?

What do you base that on? Figs?

That's ridiculous.

There weren't many that were going to beat her? MTB and MM, both pretty ordinary horses in the grand scheme of things, got pretty close to her. That race shape would have set up perfectly for R2R.

At the risk of breaking Danzig's all time consecutive post record within a single thread, I'll say this.

How are they comparable?

GFW as a two year old went 3 for 4 with one second, romping in her debut, winning by 19 in her 2nd start, running 2nd in her stakes debut and then was a romping winner in the BC. An easy win for 2yo filly champ. RA started six times with a 3-2-0 record for about 200k. Not quite equals in my book.

At three, GFW started the year with two romps before getting shocked in the Ky Oaks by the underrated Seaside Attraction. She ran in every top race and faced far superior horses compared to what RA ran against. RA cherry picked her spots, running at OP twice and FG once before the Oaks. Her opposition was horrific.

To compare opposition at three, up to this point:

GFW: Trumpets Blare, Seaside Attraction (they split), Charon and Bright Candles.

RA: Afleet Deceit (2), Peach Brew, Flying Spur (2), Our Dahlia, Just Jenda, and Stone Legacy. And, of course, the Preakness.

that's non morty consecutive post record there, fella!


but you say 'and, of course, the preakness' as tho that's almost an afterthought. does that race get her up more in line with the competition go for wand had faced? it might not have been the best field ever, but i thought compared to several recent preakness fields, it was better than most. but then...that may not be saying a lot.
btw, i'm not yet ready to put her right up there with wanda either.

LOL, yeah. I don't count Morty.

At all.

besides, i doubt it's really the record...sheeesh, a bit of posting under the influence for the first time in i don't know how long.....and i'll never hear the end of it.

Weird, this second part of your post didn't show up the first time.

Soo, the way I worded her Preakness competition was for two reasons. One, it was far better than what she'd faced, and two, there wasn't a race from GFW's history that was comparable at the same time. After the Oaks, GFW didn't run again till early June where she beat Charon and Stella Madrid (who accounted for GFW's sole loss at 2).

i probably edited almost immediately after hitting submit. don't want more grief for too many posts-some pay attention to that for some reason. :D

i'd think all things being considered, steve isn't far off in saying at this point you could compare the two. you gotta give points for taking on the guys, something they chose not to do with wanda. and the way the race unfolded-rachel had quite a task to take on, and she handled it well.

Why take on the boys with GFW? It's not like facing Bayakoa in the BC, or some of the nice 3yo fillies in her own crop were a complete mismatch.

Besides, I don't see any Unbridleds or Summer Squalls in this crop of colts.

it's the measure most want to take of a top filly. it's always thought, no matter how good a filly is, that she must take on the 'tougher' competition of the colts to really prove herself. i'm not always in complete agreement there...
there was a lot of pressure on christiana stables to take on the classic instead of the distaff at the bc that year. like badgett said after they lost her, thank god they didn't. just think if GFW went down like that vs boys. that would have been bad. real bad.


i read some interesting stuff on rachel:

You just saw the 11th filly to ever win a Triple Crown race and the first favored filly since Regret in 1915 to win a classic. All you gals out there, you just saw a filly take down the boys. You just saw a great day for racing.

that was from bloodhorse. i also know this is the first time ever that the ky oaks winner took down the preakness.

Yes and that scorching pace in that Belmont
that Rags had to keep up with is not something
most people would look back on as some sort of
defining race.

1:15 and a half at 6f...hell of a walking battle.
The stretch was interesting beating a tired Curlin.
Thats about it.

Go for Wand won the 7f Test in 1:21, which equalled Very Subtle's stakes record.

She came back nine days later and won the 10f Alabama in 2:00 4/5, setting a stakes record. To put it in perspective, the record for the Travers is 2:00 and her time has only been bettered twice in Travers history, by General Assembly (2:00) and Honest Pleasure (2:00 1/5) and equalled (Easy Goer and Thunder Rumble). Again, she did that nine days after that Test win.

She came back to beat older in the Maskette Mile then came back to win the Beldame in a stakes record 1:45 4/5, only 2/5 off of Secretariat's track record. Keep in mind this was a 3yo filly doing that.

Though she broke down in the BC Distaff (I thought she was going to win but we'll never know), let's not forget how good that horse was she was running nose and nose with. Bayakoa was a 12-time grade one winner (along with three grade two wins). She won grade ones in NY, California, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Florida. She was as good a filly as you'd want to see and was the defending Distaff and Eclipse winner.

Rachel is good. She's special. She could do things to surpass Go for Wand. But she's got a long way to go for that and I doubt she ever will. There's good and then there's great. Then there's the true superstars. Go for Wand is at that highest level to me.

I agree with everything you say, but I think your points are exactly why Byk made the point of comparing the two only up to this point in their careers.

That didn't hold water for me anyways, as I thought GFW was a much more accomplished two year old and probably lost the Oaks due to the awful track condition.

There's something unsettling about starting to compare Rachael to Ruffian and Go For Wand when you think about what happened with those.....let's get her safely through the year before we do that.

I completely disagree.

Of those that I've seen first hand, Go for Wand is my favorite filly. The summer and fall of 1990 summary of her performances is nice. I saw every one of them in person. But they aren't germane to the conversation that was had on the air yesterday. The comparison made was that of the fillies TO THIS POINT IN THEIR CAREERS. And Wand's and Rachel Alexandra's are very comparable to this point in time (Spring of their sophomore seasons).

Yeah.. exactly.

But while track conditions are viable as explanations for beats, they aren't a free pass. Round Table is my favorite horse of history, and he was continually vulnerable in wet conditions. If he hadn't been, he'd be one of the Top 8-10 horses of all time instead of one the Top 15-20.

Go for Wand did do more as a two year old than Rachel Alexandra, but Rachel Alexandra has made up the difference with this dominating series of performances.

I believe Go For Wand ran numbers in the summer and fall of her 3yo season that RA will have a very difficult time reaching. At least from a Beyer fig standpoint.

With the way the sheets scales - TG especially - tend to trend faster and faster every year ... I'm sure they have Rachel Alexandra about 12 lengths faster than Go For Wand right now.

It's an interesting conversation. There are two ways to look at things. For example, one could say that thru three career races, Secretariat only had a maiden win and an allowance win. Thru three career races, Majestic Warrior was a grade one winner, Tale of Ekati was a grade two winner, War Pass and Wicked Style were both undefeated grade one winners. I think you get the point. I think so many things factor into what a horse is able to accomplish but that doesn't always have a direct correlation to ability. Personal Ensign beat the boys once because she only got one chance. Azeri and Zenyatta may have been able to beat them a few times too but they didn't have the chances so does that automatically mean that Personal Ensign accomplished more? As far as accomplishments and record, Rachel and GfW are comparable. Was the discussion in regards to accomplishments or talent?

a fave of mine as well, and imo the best u.s. turf horse ever.