12/15-16 (LRC): Soviet Problem; King Glorious
 

As one of the best horses this country has seen in the past 40 years, King Glorious deserves a better race than this....and also the correct name in the thread title.

The best horse King Glorious ever beat was Hawkster, and he did that when he was a 2yo. Hawkster was about 10 lengths better on the grass than he was on the dirt, too, by the way.

At 3 King Glorious was the best of the second tier 3yos, pummeling sprinter Musci Merci, Finger Lakes terror Mercedes Won, turf marathoners Shy Tom and Charlie Barley, and Meadowlands loiterers Rampart Road and Roi Danzig in paceless 9 furlong races on speed-favoring surfaces.

If he had run in the Travers against Easy Goer, he probably would have kept Clever Trevor from finishing second by running himself and the great Oklahoma-bred into the ground.

If he had run in the Swaps against Sunday Silence, he probably would have enabled the black colt to win the race by giving him a distance-limited target to track rather than trying to make all only to get caught while dawdling in the stretch by the sharp Prized.

If King Glorious deserves a better race than a late season Cal-bred juvenile stakes race then Lost Code and Richman deserve to have the Arc de Triomphe and the Melbourne Cup re-named in their honor respectively...

King Glorious really was talented.
He just didn't win his races.....he ran them off their feet(if you will)……
Took the Piedmont @ GGF by over 20 lengths.
As a 2yo he blew through Hollywood Park winning the Hollywood Juvenile Championship/Hollywood Prevue/Hollywood Futurity.
He laughed at them in the Ohio Derby and the Haskell.
Injury shortened his career,he retired 8 for 9 with one second place finish.

https://youtu.be/zuVpLcDbO7Y

https://youtu.be/NuJ2HJBPbog

Perhaps all of this is correct. Personally, I am not a believer that only horses who excel at distances past nine furlongs can be considered good. I appreciate a good sprinter too. I feel like it’s harder to separate yourself from the rest when the distances are shorter and the margin for error is smaller and more horses are bred to run at the shorter distances. Having said that, I do believe KG was one of the fastest 2yo horses I’ve seen. He set a track record in his first start, a stakes record in his second start, came to the big leagues and ran a 1:08 4/5 in his third, sat out for over three months and then ran a 1:21 2/5, which at the tome equaled the second fastest time ever for a 2yo.

How would he have fared at the longer distances against the likes of Sunday Silence and Easy Goer? It’s highly probable that they would have handled him. They are all-time greats. But if you lined them up in a race like the Met Mile or the Vosburgh or BC Sprint, I’d feel very good about my chances with him. For whatever it’s worth, Gary Stevens once told me that at 9f, they could beat him but that up to a mile, they’d wonder what hit them.

No doubt King Glorious was an exceptional juvenile who ran fast times around one-turn, but soundness issues kept him from competing against the best of his generation where he would have received a true acid test. The distance limitations were clear despite winning what turned out to be his final two starts.

As far as what Gary Stevens has to say about him, I'm not sure it cuts much ice. Gary Stevens never rode the horse--or Easy Goer or Sunday Silence for that matter...

When I say he was one of the best, I do realize that it’s based mostly on opinion and not fact. I believe that up to 9f, he could have given them a run but KNOWING for a fact how well they ran going that far and beyond, it’s doubful he would have stood a chance.

When Stevens told me that, it was just after KG had been ruled out of the Santa Anita Derby and I had asked him how he thought KG would have fared in that race. His complete answer was that he thought he would have been favored in the race and chasing him was like chasing a shadow.

In the end, I just want to believe it lol.

A one-turn flat mile would have been an interesting race.

Recall that Easy Goer ran the fastest mile ever for a 3yo when clocking 1:32 2/5 for the one-turn Gotham in April.

Sunday Silence, in a public workout between races at Del Mar in September, breezed a mile in a ridiculous 1:33 2/5, just shy of the track record set by champion Precisionist (1:33 1/5) a year earlier.

Galilean made it look easier than picking plums.
He's the goods.