Close but Not Quite

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

Depends on who is having the conversation. On the top of his game there is no horse in the last 25 years that either couldnt beat on a regular basis at 1 1/4. Despite the attitude that prevails now, close losses to fellow great horses does not show weakness. The problem now is that horses get nice clean records but they never beat ( or lose to) anyone truly great because those horses simply dont exist any longer.

None of that do I disagree with. But I do think that as far as public perception goes, if you asked everyone on this board that's been around 20+ years to name the top 25 horses of that period, Ferdinand's name won't come up that often.

Speaking of losses to other top horses, in another place, I'm having a debate on the merits of one Medaglia d'Oro and his abilities at 10f. It's my position that the knock people have on him saying he couldn't do it couldn't be further from the truth. Losing to Candy Ride and that 2003 BC Classic effort.....those were absolutely winning efforts but just so happened to come against better horses or horses that got better circumstances. They didn't show weakness on his part simply because he lost.