Ruffian was a mediocre filly
 

So says Braulio Baeza:

Braulio Baeza, the jockey who rode Foolish Pleasure in 1975, had raced fillies against Ruffian before. “Mediocre filly,” he recalled in a phone interview Friday. Her victories necessitated a lead, he said, and he had ridden in match races before, so he kicked his heels, cracked his whip and flipped Ruffian’s role.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/sp...ectations.html

More proof why you shouldn't listen to jockeys ( except Migliore ).

:tro:

Don't forget T. Black :)

Perhaps he was trying to say she was overrated??

FTFY

I glanced at the article. It said Foolish Pleasure won the KY Derby and the Preakness. I stopped reading.

Why would you trust anything after that?

It's possible it is a misquote, I agree. If so, I'd expect him to call them on it, however.

I don't understand what the point was in writing about match races.

They aren't practical anymore.

Do betters want them? No. Here's a link to the chart of the Battle of the Sexes match race at Del Mar:

http://www.equibase.com/premium/eqbP...try=USA&race=4

Woke Up Dreamin was the 1-to-2 favorite in the betting. Chester's Choice, at odds of 4-to-5 was the underdog in the race.

No one wants to bet a race where the underdog is odds-on.

Obviously, takeout rates have steadily risen over the years and that's a major reason why match races have become such absolute turds as events.

The other reason is because handicaps have basically become a thing of the past. Seabiscuit and War Admiral were the dominant older horses and from different regions.

It wouldn't have been desirable to see Seabiscuit and War Admiral come together for a meeting -- the handicapper assign more weight to one than the other -- and a mare like Esposa getting an 18lbs weight break and beating the both of them in a driving finish, with a razor sharp minor stakes type getting 30lbs and right there at the finish with the trio.

The match race goal is a clean weight-for-age event between the most popular horses.

I got to get going, but here's Whirlaway's 4-year-old season.



Whirlaway was the only horse in history to officially win the Triple Crown and Travers.

He started 22 times at age 4 in all the important races, and his record that season was 22-12-8-2.

18 of the 22 races were handicaps. Of the four that weren't -- one was an ALW race on June 22nd that was probably designed to keep his weight imposts as favorable as possible for the upcoming big handicaps. The goal to win as unimpressively as humanly possible.

The second non-handicap was a special match-race against fellow Hall Of Famer Alsab. Whirlaway was a closer, and a poor fit for match races, but you can't turn down races like that.

The third non-handicap was the Jockey Club Gold Cup at 2 miles. Only 3 others showed up. Whirlaway and Alsab dominated the race. It was more than 8 lengths back to 3rd. Whirlaway won. One week later, 12 horses showed up in the New York Handicap at Belmont to face Whirlaway and Alsab under handicap conditions.

The final non-handicap was the Pimlico Special. Whirlaway won that race in a walk-over.

22 starts and he was the favorite every time.

Whirlaway was a champion 2-year-old and he was Horse of the Year at ages 3 and 4.

He finished 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in 48 straight races and was an immensely popular horse.

I'm surprised this writer didn't ask him several follow-up questions.

Baeza has a point that Ruffian was tactically one-dimensional in that she never rated from off the pace. To call her mediocre is comical and lunacy. She was a devastating sprinter and though not a great figure horse routing, she was a Grade 1 winner at 12 furlongs.

More than a few great fillies had one-dimensional running styles. Zenyatta being the most extreme example. She had absolutely no tactical speed at all and calling her "a big slug" would be kind. While massively overrated, anyone who thinks she was a 'mediocre mare' would be saying something moronic.

But you wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley.

And George Woolf still thought Seabiscuit was a better horse.

:tro: to all.

and he probably didn't ask follow ups because he may not have known enough about the subject to know what to ask. ruffian lead at every call of every race, that might indicate one dimensional-but she absolutely was not mediocre.

too much time in the hot box?

Heh. Whirlaway never seems to get much respect, does he? Breyer started a Triple Crown series of Christmas ornaments and he, along with Omaha, Count Fleet and Assault, never got made.

ESPN did a one-hour SportsCentury on Whirlaway that they still run on ESPN Classic throughout the year.

They might have given him a little too much respect in that piece. They made him out to be a hero of World War II.

So did this congressman...

http://capitolwords.org/date/2006/06...-armed-servic/

Regarding Seabiscuit and Whirlaway.

Seabiscuit was every bit the handicap champion that Whirlaway was and probably a little bit more. He was also more tactically versatile than Whirlaway and likely would have beaten him in a match race.

Here is a cut of Seabiscuit as an older horse:



Note the difference in weights that he's carrying against his top finishing rival.

Three times in a row, he was 2nd by a neck. In those three races, the horse who beat him got a weight break of 30 pounds, 12 pounds, and 15 pounds.

Even in all of his wins, Seabiscuit was carrying bowling balls more than his opposition. He was facing top competition, racing in big fields, and traveling all over the country.

That said, Whirlaway is clearly the higher rated overall horse. Seabiscuit was mediocre until very late into his 3yo season when he exploded in Northern California. I don't think Seabiscuit's win over War Admiral was any kind of fluke. He looked the better horse and War Admiral didn't run to his best form at Pimlico. He won the Preakness in a desperate battle as a 3yo and made hard work of weak competition in the prior years Pimlico Special. War Admiral bounced right back and won his next race. He had no excuse in the match race.

Seabiscuit has a suspicious form and his trainer later came under suspicion.

I'll look for the ESPN special; thanks! (I imagine some one has probably put it on YouTube if I can't find it on Netflix.)