[King Glorious]

I think Curlin was the top 3yo of last year but I don't think it was definititve. A short nose in the Preakness and he would have had a losing record against Street Sense. The dominance of the BC Classic is what seemed to make everyone think it was definitive but because of the track conditions, I don't know if you can say that. While I don't hold it against him that he lost to a filly in the Belmont because I thought that filly was top class, even if the results would have been reversed and it was his head in front at the wire, the tight finish in the race would have further proved that while he was the best, the margin was close.

As for this year, I'm not fooled. I haven't seen a better horse this year than I saw in the fall of last year. I like to see improvement from the 3yo to 4yo season and I just haven't. I've seen a horse that's beat up on third rate competition all year long. Obviously, who he faces is not something that's in his control but his performances are and they just haven't done it for me. The sad thing is that the state of the game is so bad right now that he's still the leading candidate for HOY.

I'd go with saying he was the best of last year's 3yo class. He is arguably among the top 10 of the 2000's (although off the top of my head, I just came up with six I'd put ahead of him and that was with little thought). One of the all-time greats? Not in the opinion of this guy. Of all of the horses that I've personally watched in the 22 years I've been following horses, I'd guess Curlin might fall in the 51-75 range. That's really disappointing to me because after watching his Arkansas Derby, I would have thought he was surely on his way to my personal all-time top 20, at least.