Rahy pensioned at 24
 

On pure talent, I'd put Rahy in the top five horses I've ever seen run.

http://www.drf.com/news/article/105141.html

Better then Discreet Cat DrugS is going to have a sheat fit

I happened to be in Britain during the autumn of 1987, remember Rahy as 2yo. not quite a champion but not far off. He was a little guy, too; little guys can run and sire runners, too.

You must really like Present Value.

Ugh.

I thought Drysdale did a terrible job bringing him back after the monster win at HP.

Yep. I hate when trainers run there horses in the next logical spot.

Yeah, and I hate when otherwise usually semi-intelligent people say really idiotic things.

Perhaps you forgot the many months long layoff and the series of 7f works in 1:32 and change for Rahy.

Or maybe you don't.

You gotta be sh!tting me. Many months? The Bel Air was traditionally run the last weekend of the spring/summer Hollywood meet. The Ramser (when it was a dirt race for older horses) was run opening week of the Oak Tree meet (late September-October). He basically missed the Del Mar meet, and what a shame, whatwith its all important races for older horses at the time (ie the non-graded Cabrillo Handicap).

By my count, he skipped all of 2 months.

Of course, if you believe everything you read in Dr. Seuss's "Wacky Wednesday", well then we still have the month of Octember to deal with, too.

My mistake. It was only 20 years ago. The actual layoff was a bit short of three months.

However, Drysdale had him working long and slow, which was typical of him back then. He was just about the lowest % trainer off a layoff back then on that circuit. I did bet him in his comeback race, but I was not comfortable seeing that his 'best' work coming back for that race was 7f in around 1:30, with the rest even slower.

If you think Present Value was a better horse than Rahy you are nuts.

Off his Bel Air, Rahy was clearly a superior sprinter-miler. I suppose Drysdale's intent was to get him to stretch out, but the horse simply wasn't good enough. He wasn't gonna beat anything of quality (Present Value or otherwise) around two turns.

I would guess he had some soundness issues as well, given his Van Winkle-like 2 month layoff (not to mention his countless lead changes down the lane of both the Bel Air and Goodwood).

Well, he did beat the third horse, On the line, by 8 in his comeback, and in his last start, it was 3.5 back to the third horse.

Based on his breeding, I saw no reason why he wouldn't have stretched out.

He did have soundness issues though.