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Originally Posted by Danzig188
they've always said when a horse has NO competition, than he competes with the clock. man o war did that and then some.
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Man O' War was foaled in 1917, he was one of just 1,680 race horses foaled that year. That is the 2nd smallest foal crop of any year in the entire 1900s. Only the crop of 1919, which had just 15 fewer horses, was smaller.
Now, lets say that half of the 1,680 were males. So, we'd have 840 male foals in his crop. Of those 840---I bet you a surprsing percentage never ran a single race in their career. However, I don't have the numbers to that, so I can't say how many did.
A record 463,827 race horses were foaled in the 1980's. Just 18,857 were foaled in the 1910's. On the Blood Horse's List for top 100 of the century, ZERO horses foaled in the 1980's made the top thirty!!
Man O' War made 11 starts as a 3-year-old. In those 11 starts he beat fields of 8, 2, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 1, 1, 3, 1
He was simply just MUCH the best of a handful of horses--and his connections adoritly avoided a showdown with the best horse in the land outside of his crop.
In Man O' War's entire racing career---he beat a GRAND TOTAL OF TWO horses that weren't from his foal crop...and both of them in match races, where he was able to use his superior early speed to his advantage...and get loose early leads.
I guess I'm supposed to consider him the #1 horse of the century because he once ran a 1 1/4 in 2:01 4/5ths? Or 1 1/2 miles in 2:28 4/5ths? The fastest six furlongs he ran was when he was beaten a half length to upset in 1:11 1/5ths. Oh yeah, we also have to assume the tracks were 20 lengths slower back than.