3 year old Champion
 

1-Essential Quality
2-Life is Good
3-Medina Spirit

Who do you pick, and why?

EQ because his stallion advert has already been printed

If I had a vote, it would be Medina Spirit.

1) Even though he beat Medina Spirit twice this year, Life is Good hasn't raced past 1 1/16 mile. Didn't race in any of the classics.

2) Medina Spirit beat EQ in 2 races that they were both in.

3) The only thing EQ has going for him is he raced all year compared to the other 2.

:tro::tro::tro:

Life is Good is my selection.

Essential Quality had the best overall record (5 for 7), won at 4 different distances (8.5f, 9f, 10f, 12f) at 4 different racetracks (also won on an off track), beat the Preakness winner twice, was a multiple Grade 1 winner, and won 2 classics (Belmont, Travers). He started only in Graded stakes the entire year and was unbeaten in all starts below the Grade 1 level (2 Grade 2s and a Grade 3). He did not fail the post race tests in any of his victories.

What were the two biggest tests of the year for him? The two races he was trained and set to peak in? What happened in both of those races? Sure, the Derby result was questioned because of the drug issue and because of the trips both horses had. People argued that Essential Quality was probably best even in defeat. Myself among them. Going into the Classic, I had Essential Quality clearly ahead of him. We can't, however, pretend that the Classic didn't happen. A 1-0 advantage, maybe even a 2-1 advantage, I can see an argument for the second horse. 2-0 is difficult for me. I know you'll tear it apart but it reminds me of the Sunday Silence/Easy Goer debate. After the Belmont, despite being down 1-2, I felt that Easy Goer was the better horse. The next few months saw Sunday Silence losing to Prized and winning the Super Derby while Easy Goer was out there winning the best races in the country, beating older horses, etc, and led to Easy Goer being favored in the Classic. We know what happened next.

If Essential Quality and Medina Spirit were to face each other again, I'd more than likely pick Essential Quality again because I still feel like he's probably the better horse but with voting having to be done based on the current results, it's gotta be Medina Spirit over Essential Quality.

Did he start in only 2 big races all year? I suppose since Life is Good fits that bill...

I don't know if his trainer would have been dumb enough to "really train" him for only 2 races. Especially since on pedigree his ideal race was always going to be the Belmont Stakes. Maybe that's why he lost the BC Classic. Too many hard races while the other candidates were sprinting, laid up at Los Al, having surgery, or running in listed stakes. Letruska is still going to be champion older mare despite her BC effort.

You just stated the case here. And the drug issue doesn't go away just because you recognize it happened.

A strict head-to-head is silly, especially since both horses got blitzed by an older horse. We can base it on beaten rivals, too. You mention Prized, who beat Sunday Silence by 3/4s of a length in the Swaps. Well, Easy Goer beat Prized by about 20 lengths in the Jockey Club Gold Cup.

Essential Quality was consistently better than Rock Your World, Midnight Bourbon, and Hot Rod Charlie all year long. Medina Spirit was better than those horses some of the time (depending on his physical condition and treatment regimen).

Again, Medina Spirit failed his Derby post-race test; not gonna just chalk up an easy "1" for him for that race.

I wouldn't; Essential Quality was always being trained and campaigned like a horse that was going to be retired at the end of his 3yo year. Who knows what they are going to do with Medina Spirit. He was a bench warmer in his barn until mid-April (which is why he made 9 starts instead of the usual 6 from that barn).

You know damn well that trainers set up training and racing schedules to have their horses peak at certain times. Do not try to insult anyone's intelligence by insinuating that he had him as cranked up and ready to toll in the Jim Dandy as he did in the Classic. When he sent him out in the Southwest Stakes, you think the screws were as tight as they were for the Derby? Stop it. You know what I mean when I said his two biggest tests were the Derby and the BC Classic. Those were the two where he was trained to be at his best.

Now a trainer's intention is a data point in Eclipse Voting? Who knew?

I like this, you downplay the significance of the Belmont Stakes and Travers and focus only on the Southwest and Jim Dandy? Laughable...and disingenuous.

We don't know which races (if any) Cox altered the horse's training schedule for specifically. I could believe that he "tightened the screws" the most for the Belmont, not only because he was expected to win based on his pedigree (Tapit), but also because of the 12 furlong distance and the fact that he lost the Derby (and thus had to win in order to be a classic winner). And I could believe he also cranked him up for the Travers, too (arguably he did, simply because he put an extra race into him by running in the Jim Dandy--an insignificant race in your opinion apparently) because a win in that race that would likely cement him the 3yo Eclipse.

Tons of horses are past their peak in BC (Letruska, Riboletta, Fusaichi Pegasus, Forty Niner, Aptitude, Best Pal, etc.); that's why the whole thing fails as a "Championship" event.

But whatever, I'm not campaigning for one horse or the other. I only responded because someone posted that Essential Quality had little going for him compared to the other two.

I can see Medina Spirit winning the Eclipse what with his ho-hum spring campaign, his unexpected Derby wire job, his failed post-race Derby test, his pumpkin-like effort in the Preakness 2 weeks later, his exile to Los Alamitos, his thrilling comeback at Del Mar in a listed stakes in a 4-horse field, his strategic "post 9" scratch from the Penn Derby when Baffert realized that he was running into a buzzsaw in Hot Rod Charlie, and the all important win against older horses when he beat the Iowa Derby winner Stilleto Boy (a 3yo) by a pole in a race at Santa Anita named for a horse owned by the owner of Santa Anita that never started at Santa Anita, all capped off by a futile effort in defeat in the BC despite having the benefit of that summer cakewalk campaign.

Ok. If you want to convince yourself that the Belmont is the race trainers are shooting for and not the Derby, I can’t stop you. If you think the BC Classic was an afterthought, a sort of “well, he’s bouncing off the walls so we might as well enter him somewhere to get the edge off him” kind of race since he had already won the Travers, which was his real main objective, go ahead.

It is your fantasy that the trainer was training the horse substantially different for certain races in his campaign. Following that line of fantasy, doesn't it make fantastical sense that--given the LOSS IN THE DERBY and the anticipated STALLION CAREER of a champion son of TAPIT--that they would likely go ALL IN in the Belmont Stakes? Maybe there's some semi-objective way to figure out if any of that is even partially true. Anyone know in which race Essential Quality registered his highest Beyer Speed Figure?

I wonder if the connections of say Easy Goer or A.P. Indy did anything different with their horses ahead of the Belmont after they lost or were held out of the Kentucky Derby?

At any rate, I'm not trying to convince myself of anything; certainly none of the nonsense that you posted above.

More disingenuous filth. Did I say the BC Classic was an afterthought? No.

I suggested that the horse was past his peak (you know, because some industry participants actually care about ALL prestigious races during the year rather than focusing solely on some bloated nonsense conducted in circus fashion at the end of every year).

You are way over the top with this "real main objective" BS. If you really believe class horses are only able to put in one good race a year then you are part of the problem. The hilarious part is that Medina Spirit with his losing record won only one "real main objective" during the year (and lost several non-"real main objectives") and wasn't even able to clear a post-race test. And yet he's your champion...

...although to be fair he certainly fits with your past 2 "real" HOYs.

Ditto.....

Don’t know where you got it from but Medina’s Spirit was not my choice for top 3yo. That would be Life is Good. Essential Quality would be second.

Also, don’t know where you got that I said they can only put in one good race a year. But I do know that trainers don’t train their horses to peak in lesser races when the bigger ones are their main objectives. Like I said, if you believe he was as cranked and prepared for the Southwest as he was for the Derby, we have nothing else to talk about on this subject.

Isn't the point (that he has repeated a few times now) that you're speculating on what races he was "cranked" for? Sure, Cox probably targeted the Derby and Classic, but I can't imagine training horses is as simple as just targeting races and tightening the screws for the big ones.

Who cares what races he was the most fit for and what races he wasn't? That is all subjective. At the end of the day all that matters is how they performed in said races.

If you believe Life is Good remotely had anything like a championship campaign, we have nothing else to talk about on this subject. He lost his biggest test of the year (the King's Bishop). The Kelso field might have been worse than any of those exhibition races Forego and Seattle Slew used to launch their campaigns back in the '70s. The Dirt Mile this year looked like it should have been carded at The Downs at Alberqueque. Maybe if he wins the Cigar Mile AND the Malibu you might be on to something.

Mandaloun or Rombauer make more sense than him.

No, I don't believe that Life is Good had a championship campaign. But I do believe that he was by far the most talented and with no other candidate separating themselves in my book, I go with the most talented. If either Essential Quality or Medina's Spirit would have won the Classic, I would have picked that horse.

Yes, that is his point but no, I don't agree that it's not worth considering. It's just as with any other sport. You train to peak for the biggest games, the championship level events. The Saints beat the Buccaneers twice in the regular season but Tampa didn't bring Brady there to be at his best for those games. They wanted to peak in the playoffs and when they played NO in the playoffs, Brady won. Maybe you guys believe that if one horse beats the other in the Swale and Holy Bull but then the other horse turns the tables in the Florida Derby and Kentucky Derby, that makes them level. I don't. The latter won the more important races and that carries more weight in my book. I don't think it's realistic to think all races are equal and they want to win all of them equally as bad. So since we all know some races are more important than others, I don't think it's silly to think that a trainer would have their horse more prepared for the more important races and I think that it means something when a horse is set to run their best and they lose when all others are set to run their best too.