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Originally Posted by oracle80
Hoist,
Empire maker never ran in the Travers. It never ceases to amaze me how some "breeding experts" can possibly hope to succeed with new stallions if they dont handicap or have a handicapping reference to tell them what the horses story, trips, and sheet numbers were.
You are referencing his Jim Dandy, and it was not a "bad loss", in fact it was an exteremly impressive race.
On that day any good and knowledgable player can tell you that the track at Saratoga that day resembled the Indy 500 speedway. Every horse who made the lead in a dirt race won!!! Throw in that on that day that the rail was GOLDEN!! Empire Maker was given one of the few bad rides that JD Bailey ever gave. He took him back to last behind a moderate pace that Pletcher's horse set while clear under no pressure on the rail. Empire Maker was then forced widest of all while attempting to rally from last and came up about two strides short while closing. They also flew home late in that race. His widest of all rally against an inside speed bias while attempting to run down a very sharp horse who was loose on the lead running with the aid of a powerful bias was VERY IMPRESSIVE!! His sheet number earned in that race was as good as any he ever ran.
To question his talent because of that race is quite ridiculous.
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I meant his Wood, which I thought gave him his reputation as the next coming of Secretariat. Sorry, I don't have time to reread everything. I thought he was all out to hold off Funny Cide, although most (Frankel included) said he could have won by double digits. Breeders and gamblers use completely different statistics. Sale figures are everything in the breeding game and mean nothing to gamblers. Empire Maker's 100,000 stud fee puts him in elite company with Forestry and he has proven nothing. Quite a few RNA's for his yearlings. His breeding is as good as it gets but he was injury prone and had quite a disappointing racing career. His Belmont wasn't exactly lightning and if I recall correctly he won by quite a small margin. More likely to be an underachiever in the shed than the next AP Indy. Just my opinion though.