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Originally Posted by Pointg5
How many of those were graded? People forget that Smarty needed to win or place in the Arkansas Derby to even qualify for the Kentucky Derby.
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They both had the same # of graded stakes wins and they both won the Derby, the Preakness, and their last Derby prep. So in that way they are the same, and some other criteria must be used. Outside of those races, Smarty Jones won 3 stakes races and Charismatic won zero. Were races like the Southwest graded? No, but I am willing to bet that it was a better race than the claiming races that Charismatic was competing in.
Now maybe you are right and that wasn't his fault and his connections just hadn't figured him out. But in judging something like HOY you have to go with the results on the track and you can't realistically say that Smarty didn't have a better year overall. He accomplished everything that Char did, + more. Maybe it wasn't a ton more, but it was more nonetheless. Therefore he had a better overall year than Char. If you look at wins, stakes wins, $ earned, overall record....Smarty beats him in all of those things. To me that makes for a better year.