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Originally Posted by DaHoss9698
Kev, i understand what you are saying but here is how I looked at it, because I thought Miesque's Approvel should be the winner. Arguably the two biggest turf races distance wise in the country are the Arlington Million and the BC turf. English Channel lost both. The Tin Man defeated him by winning the Arlington Million and race record was just as good as EC's. I think they kind of crossed each other out. Tough to seperate them. Whereas MA won the BC Mile, the biggest middle distance turf race, and had a very good year. Add to it the outside stuff like him being in a claiming race last year, his unbelievable turn around. Remember, it's an opinion vote, voted on by writers so it'll never be correct. I personally think in this case it is, but surely a very valid arguement could be made for either one of the 3.
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In all honesty, its hard to even really compare MA to EC or TTM. MA ran in 2 races over 1 mile all year. He ran in the 1 1/8 Sunshine Millions Turf (beating Silver Tree and Icy Atlantic
) in a race that was gift wrapped for him by the pace setters (:46, 1:09, 1:33, 1:44). Come on...I could have run down the frontrunners with them setting those fractions. His only other race over 1 mile was the Canadian Turf Handicap, where he finished 2nd to none other than....ENGLISH CHANNEL. He had no excuses that day other than he simply wasn't good enough. He had pace to run at, he was making his 3rd start for Wolfson, was in top form. English Channel was coming off a 4.5 month layoff....clearly not in top form and was using that race as a prep the
Turf Classic on Derby Day.
The rest of MA's races last year were all for 1 mile...no more, no less. He gets Artie at the wire in the Makers Mark, and we all know that Artie was a shadow of his former self, so no great feat there IMO. MA then beats the mighty FREE THINKING in the Firecracker, and we all KNOW what a great turf horse he is. He then backs that up with a HUGE effort over the mighty HOTSTUFFANDTHENSOME AND SENOR SWINGER in that hotly contest Grade 3 Redbank. He then runs a non competitive 4th in the Shadwell. Tops the year off by run FANTASTIC in the BC Mile and winning....
Im sorry, 1 great race does not equal an Eclipse in my book.