What is going to be the Sunday headline for the BC

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by Calzone Lord

Frankel is great -- he beat St. Nicholas Abby and Excalibration (over and over) with absolute devastating ease... the fact that those two finished 3rd and 4th in the BC doesn't take anything away from his claim to greatness.

Maybe it highlights that it wasn't a good year for the quality of Euro's outside of him ... but he buried them all and it's not as easy to bury horses on turf as it is on dirt.

I wasn't that impressed with the Euro's who came here when I evaluated them. George Vancouver and St Nicholas Abby were the only two Euro's I picked on top in the BC this year.

I'm sure you know this but the history of QE II winners coming over here for the BC Mile is abysmal. None have ever won both races while several that lost in England have come over to win here, including Miesque, Barathea, and Ridgewood Pearl. The ones that won in England and came here and lost have burned a lot of money. Remember Zilzal, Warning, Markofdistinction, Mark of Esteem, Desert Prince? More recently, several runners from that race have come over and done well in the Classic. Giant's Causeway, Raven's Pass, and Henrythenavigator come to mind. Even Falbrav ran well in the Turf. Interestingly, the same kind of history can be seen between the Arc and the BC Turf. No horse has won both but several Arc also rans have won the Turf.

My belief is that because the QE II and the Arc are basically the end of season championships over in Europe, horses are trained to be at their very best for those races and asking them to keep their form and come over here to face American horses that are primed to give their best performances in the BC is very tough. How many times to we see the horses that win BC races come back in races like the Cigar or the Clark or any other late season race? When we do see them come back, we often see them lose.

Another thing to think about is something I heard a long time ago from a very prominent American trainer. He said that because of the course layouts for some of those European tracks, the races are more tests of stamina than they are for speed like here in the states and because of that, when horses come over from Europe, their best American distance is at least a furlong further and often more than that. This seems to be especially true when you look at horses that run well at Ascot.