Who was closer to the Triple Crown...Smarty or Alex?

[pmayjr]

Yeah man I'm warning you. Some posters on this site will slay you for posting about hypotheticals. I posted before that even if nothing woulda happened to Barbaro in the Preakness, I think Bernardini would have beaten him that day. I got destroyed for making a comment on something that never happened. So be prepared for the same...

With that being said- Probably Afleet Alex. Because the Derby was a freak race with a freak pace scenario. Plus Rose was weaving Alex through the lane which prolly took extra out of him. But otherwise, AA didn't have any "true" foes. He wrecked everyone else in the 3 year old division.

On the Flip side, eventhough Smarty won the first 2 legs fairly convincingly- but Birdstone turned out to be the real deal. The pace was forced on Smarty, and he finally ran out of gas. But Birdstone was validated by the Travers win (whether you wanna say he beat a weak group or not, I don't care, he won it). So Afleet Alex was closer in my eyes.