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Originally Posted by Revolution
Brilliant career but his races are so spaced apart that it is impossible to consider him a great horse. He raced at 2, 3, 4 and 5 and had a total of 11 career races. I doubt he would have been able to race as quickly if he raced more than 1x every 4 months. Who is to say other top horses couldn't have done the same if they raced so infrequently.
People like to make him out to be Dr. Fager who could win at any distance, but Dr. Fager could win at any distance and do it regularly. He did not need months off between each start.
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This is nonsense, all of it.
Criticizing Ghostzapper for running sparingly would be like criticizing Barbaro for never racing again or Don Mattingly or Bo Jackson for retiring early.
Newsflash, these things ain't machines. They are flesh and blood living creatures with a tendency to have physical problems.
He wasn't raced sparingly to set up an easy schedule, he had all sorts of physical issues and racing him back to back on short rest would have meant an early breeding shed for him.
Frankel's training job with him is 2nd only to Shug's job with Personal Ensign in my mind as the two greatest training jobs I've ever seen.
Despite the fact that he had these issues and couldn't be trained hard, or raced quick enough back to maintain form and fitness off racing(which is MUCH easier than training one of a layoff, despite what some knuckleheads may tell you), he won at all 4 ages you mentioned, and did so against teh very best of his contempoaries and at all distances and at SA, saratoga, Belmont, Monmouth, and Lone Star.
Fact is that without the problems that necessitated the abbreviated schedule, he would have been even faster and better.
I don't need to see a horse run a million times to evaluate them anyway. What else exactly did he need to prove to be considered great?