Giant Oak to Formal Gold?
 

Steve,
Did I actually hear you compare Giant Oak to Formal Gold last week? Good thing Serling stopped you from further embarrassing yourself. That is a disgrace and exposes either extremely poor judgement, some kind of bias or you just choosing to view the current quality of horses through rose colored glasses. Giant Oak failed to finish 1st in over a dozen straight races, many of them grade 2 and grade 3's against inferior competition. He gets a perfect setup and trip to just get up in the Donn last week and now he's Formal Gold? Just to refresh, Formal Gold ran many monster races and beat Skip Away by open lengths in 3 straight races at 3 different tracks before getting hurt. Skip Away then won the BC Classic by open lengths. To compare Giant Oak to any of the big 3 horses that year (Skip Away, Wills Way, Formal Formal Gold) is just plain ridiculous. Put Giant Oak at his best against Formal Gold's 3rd or 4th best race and he still loses by 15 lengths. Get a clue, please.

No. You didn't 'actually hear me compare Giant Oak to Formal Gold'. Not the specific career accomplishments of the horses anyway. That's a walkover. What was suggested was that if you were looking to appreciate the elder divisions for what they are in this era, (part of the general context of discussions that day with Steve Crist and Andy), a horse like Giant Oak could perhaps be considered as an equivalent of a Formal Gold... meaning a horse that regularly faces top competition in a variety of settings. That's what was actually being floated conceptually. If naming a specific horse most like Giant Oak from that period would offend you less, how about Puerto Madero or Tejano Run? Thanks for listening to ATR... and the annual visit here to ridicule a segment.

Thanks for replying Steve. Your clarification is fair but I didn't realize there was a minimum posting or visit requirement to post opinions to your site.

LOL.. There isn't. But I was amused that I only hear from you when you have a reason to blast me!

Sometimes when you really like the connections of a horse the horses gains a few lengths on air. To be fair you are well aware of how special Formal Gold was and how ordinary Giant Moon has been.

The guy spends his whole life in the industry and is bright. I disagree with him all the time and think he is wrong a lot. That never means I dont realize he knows a lot about the sport and its history.

I heard the show as I hear them all and I two was perplexed by Steve's comparsions but I knew at the time that it wasnt one that was to compare abilty.