If you have a little patience ... I'll explain it to you.

What actually happened: Pancho Martin was/is one of the greatest trainers ever ... a deserving Hall Of Famer. He knew exactly what he had in Sham ... a really super race horse. The first time the two horses met ... in the Wood Memorial ... Sham finished ahead of Secretariat in a very weird race won by Secretariat's second-tier stablemate Angle Light. Pancho knew Sham hadn't run anywhere near his best that day ... and when Sham trained brilliantly for the Kentucky Derby ... Pancho knew that he had a horse who would run faster than any horse had ever run in that race before. And he was right ... Sham ran faster than any horse had ever run in the Kentucky Derrby prior to 1973 ... finishing eight lengths ahead of Our Native and Forego ... but Secretariat ran even faster ... defeating Sham by 2.5 lengths. Stunned ... Pancho ran Sham back in the Preakness ... and the exact same thing happened. Sham beat Our Native by eight lengths and broke or equalled the existing track record ... but still finished 2.5 lengths behind Secretariat. Pancho was even more stunned ... how could this super horse ... whom he had trained to perfection ... run faster than any horse had ever run a Derby or Preakness before ... and still lose by open lengths? For the Belmont Stakes ... Pancho instructed Laffit Pincay to throw all caution to the wind ... just gun Sham straight from the gate and go as fast and far as he could. Pincay gunned Sham ... and they ran an unheard-of 1:09.4 for the first 6f of the 12f Belmont ... a suicidal pace which no horse could possibly withstand. No horse except one. Sham showed his "humanity" ... and tired badly coming around the turn ... but the other horse ... who had gone nose-to-nose with him at the suicidal pace ... just kept going and going and going ... until he was almost completely out of sight.

Now ... let's try to figure out what might have happened in the Belmont Stakes ... if there were no Secretariat to get Pancho so frustrated. (Stay with this because there are some calculations involved.)

What might have happened: The Kentucky Derby and Preakness results were amazingly identical ... in both races Secretariat defeated Sham by 2.5 lengths and Sham defeated Our Native by 8 lengths ... and the final time broke the previous track record by 3/5 of a second ... with Sham either slightly beating or equaling the previous track record. Our Native wasn't in the Belmont ... but My Gallant was. Our Native and My Gallant were practically clones ... they finished along side each other three times in their careers. So it's pretty safe to use My Gallant as a proxy for Our Native. So ... in both the Derby and Preakness ... Secretariat defeated Sham by 2.5 lengths and Our Native by 10.5 lengths. Thus Sham was 24% of the distance between Secretariat and Our Native (2.5 divided by 10.5) in both races. In the Belmont Stakes ... My Gallant finished 31 lengths behind Secretariat. If Sham had run his normal race ... he would theoretically have been 24% of that behind where Secretariat would have been ... or 7.5 lengths (24% of 31). However ... becaue the Belmont is 2f longer than the Derby or Preakness ... and Secretariat had the most stamina of any horse who ever lived ... I believe the margin would have been 5 to 6 lengths greater than just 7.5 lengths ... which would put Sham about 13 lengths behind where Secretariat would have been ... and 18 lengths ahead of My Gallant. This also works out well from a time standpoint ... because if Sham finished 13 lengths slower than Secretariat ... he would have shaded or equalled the previous track record ... just as he had in both the Derby and Preakness.

So ... Sham wins the Derby by 8 ... the Preakness by 8 ... and the Belmont by 13 ... possibly breaking ... but definitely equaling ... all three track records.

Superhorse? I think yes.