[King Glorious]

I think it's Bid and I don't think it's close. I totally agree with u Randall that the Belmont has skewed everyone's perception of Secretariat. No doubt, it was a great race but was it as great as everyone thinks? The fact that he won by 31-lengths has tricked a lot of people. Assuming that Secretariat went 2:24.00, that would mean that the second-place finisher went in just about 2:29. What would have happened if there had been a horse in there capable of running a 2:26 as u asked or even a 2:27? what would have happened is that Sec still would have had a devastating victory but the public perception wouldn't be the same if it was a 10-15 length win instead of 31. It wouldn't have taken away at all from Sec's domination of the race but just the perception would be changed. Nobody talks about Risen Star's nearly 15-length win with reverance. Or Bet Twice's.

Now I want to discuss just how legit that 2:24 was. Was it an indication of how great he was or was it a fluke performance? I don't know what the second fastest time is for 12f but what I did was look at the history of the Belmont Stakes, the JCGC, and some of the other races that used to be 12f at Belmont and the next best time I've found is 2:25 4/5. Ironically, that was set by Prove Out....in the race that he beat Secretariat. Secretariat was beaten 4 1/2 lengths that day, meaning he ran about 2:26 2/5. Many people have made excuses for Secretariat that day but what I find interesting is that in that race, he finished his final quarter FASTER than he did in the Belmont. He just ran into a horse that wasn't stopping like the Belmont horses were. And Prove Out GAVE Secretariat seven pounds that day too. The only other time Sec ran 12f was on the grass. I don't know what the accepted translation is but I do know that it's generally agreed by everyone that grass times are faster than dirt times. Secretariat ran 2:24 4/5 that day. My guess is that's probably equal to about 2:26 on the dirt. It's my contention that if Secretariat ran 12f on the dirt 20 times, he's never going to approach 2:24 again but would more than likely be in the 2:26 area. My guess is that the Belmont was an aberration on a super fast track.

After that, when u compare the raw times each of the two horses ran at the same distances, Bid is faster at just about every one of them. And it wasn't just as a 4yo either. Remember his 1:20 4/5 as a 2yo? And everyone talks about Sec's 1:45 2/5 for 9f but that was one-turn. I'd take Bid's 1:46 1/5 over that around two-turns. And how can anyone forget the 1:57 4/5? For my money, that race is 10x more impressive than Sec's Belmont. There are many more races run at 10f than at 12f in this country so there are many more chances for that record to be broken. But nobody has.

I'd take Bid over Secretariat at any distance on any track. Accept for 12f. That was obviously beyond Bid's best but at everything else, I think he's at least a few lengths better than Sec.