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#1
07-19-2006, 07:33 PM
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Do people simply fail to understand that he was not elected - nor widely trumpeted as - "Champion 3YO Sprinter," in which it would be perfectly acceptable to run all year against 3YOs, but as "Champion Sprinter," an all-age division in which he failed to win a race against any reasonable divisional rival after spending his whole season in races where they couldn't run against him? Oh, sure, he won one open-age race - a race in Northern California written for him about three weeks in advance, for the same day as the Vosburgh and within a week of the Ancient Title (races to which legitimate divisional rivals had already been targeted). If "Champion 3YO Sprinter" existed as a category, I suspect that very few would've had an issue with LITF being elected for it, given his otherwise perfect record on the year. Since there is no reason to believe that he was anywhere near being the best all-ages sprinter - for the reason that he, and the horses he built his reputation running against, did not have success in the all-age races that rightly define the championship of this division - that, IMHO, is the key reason for so much discord on this topic. On an unrelated topic, I saw in the other LITF thread the "sprinter giving 8+ pounds" excuse as if that's a big deal. It's not. You see it all the time. I could print out a list of dozens of examples from my database of graded stakes races, which is far from complete but still presents plenty of cases. One particular example that's worth giving is a real 3YO sprinter from not all that terribly long ago. Consider Groovy, who, as a 3YO, not only beat older horses in the Tom Fool, Forego and Ancient Title, but gave that much weight or more to some older, stakes-winning rivals in the latter two. I don't remember seeing LITF doing anything like that - and that still wasn't good enough to get Groovy a sprint championship after less of a BC Sprint debacle than LITF had. 
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#2
07-19-2006, 07:58 PM
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Surely his accomplishments last year deserve merit if for nothing else but consistency. He was consistently good enough to beat average to bad restricted three year old sprinters. He was consistently fast enough to think that just maybe he could be something special. And now, he has been consistently beaten enough to know that he isnt anything special. No one ever said he wasnt a decent horse.
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#3
07-19-2006, 09:16 PM
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#4
07-19-2006, 09:23 PM
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You say "its not who you beat". So does that mean competition has no bearing on performance? You never answered me before.
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#5
07-19-2006, 08:28 PM
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[quote= My point was that the horse won 10 straight last year and did it all over the country. Like I said previously I don't particularily care for LITF. Tried to beat him everytime last year, and this year. But I can appreciate a horse who is 11 for 14 lifetime. That's no easy task, and especially in the races he was running in.[/QUOTE]
Did you realize that of all the horses that finished behind Lost in the Fog in any graded stakes race in his career, a grand total of five of them went on to win one graded stakes each (at least through late June), only two of which were even as good as G2s? There have, for the record, been somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 graded stakes races since the date of the 2005 Swale for open gender and 3YOs or 3YOS+. His record is as good as it is only - ONLY - because he was so carefully spotted against weak competition. Next year, the King's Bishop might draw horses who end up sweeping the BC Sprint, but in 2005, the horses who took part in the age-restricted sprint stakes simply weren't very good. Sure, the connections didn't know that. But they had every reason to believe that these were softer spots than the open-age sprints and they knew that their competition for the sprint championship could not run in the races that they were carefully picking. At what time did they think, or even hope, "We might have the best sprinter in the nation?" At that time, they needed to stop running against 3YOs only and go in the many open-age stakes races to which their colt, and his sprint championship rivals, were all eligible. After that point, all they were doing was padding his record by running against patsies, in places where he was safe from having to face actual divisional rivals - doesn't matter if they shipped him to the moon and back, and issued press releases on where he was going. I realize, unfortunately, that 20 years has passed since Groovy (a horse I didn't even like at the time) was a 3YO running vs. elders. Unfortunately, I'm 20 years closer to being old! Seriously, for the benefit of more recent arrivals to our sport, there has been continued evolution in that time toward the myth that 3YOs are incapable of running safely and effectively against older horses, a trend which resulted in proliferated opportunities for 3YOs to hide in age-restricted company and gather black type and bloat reputations against their fellows. There is no reason that 3YOs can't run against elders by the summer; the only risk to them is a decent chance of getting beat, because usually, better older horses are superior to better 3YOs. But getting beat is the worst thing in the world in an era which would rather see a LITF running unbeaten against restricted company all season than a horse winning and losing while running against the best of his or her division. It makes for poor sport and arguments. Had LITF been running against elders all along, he almost assuredly would not have any sort of win streak and we wouldn't all be arguing about it.
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#6
07-19-2006, 10:31 PM
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... that the Eclipse Sprint Award should have been vacated ... that is ... no champion named. There are years when that's the best solution ... and I argued for it all last Fall. The champion in any division should be a horse who raced well over a substantial portion of the year ... AND ... who somehow demonstrated a reasonably clear superiority to his rivals. There wasn't an American sprinter last year ... who deserved to carry the glorious word "champion" for all eternity. Giving it to a horse who may not have even been in the top 10 ... debased the whole meaning of the Eclipse Award.
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#7
07-19-2006, 11:07 PM
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Your contention that LITF was not in the Top 10 is absurd. He finished 7th in the BC Sprint. How is not in the Top 10 if he finished 7th in the championship race. If hed terrible Form before the race and finished 7th, you could argue that he wasn't in the Top 10. However, he had great Form going in and was the #1 seed going in. He went off as the odds-on 3-5 favorite that day. Let's say that the fans made a huge mistake in their handicapping and he should have been 5-1 instead of 3-5. That would still put him in at least the Top 7 best sprinters(since he finished 7th) and probably the Top 4 or 5 based on his previous Form. You can't tell me that LITF should have been 40-1 that day. I see fans make mistakes all the time, but I've never seen a horse who should be 40-1 go off at 3-5. If they made mistakes that big you could make millions betting the horses.
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#8
07-19-2006, 11:05 PM
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No sprinter deserved that acclamation last year ... it cheapened the whole meaning of the Eclipse Awards. And it doesn't matter at all what I think ... the voters should have the option of checking a box which says "No champion" ... and let that be the determinant.
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#9
07-19-2006, 11:24 PM
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... the Eclipse voters should have the option of checking "No champion" ... and let those votes be determinative.
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#10
07-20-2006, 12:02 AM
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Why ... why ... surely you have me confused with someone else.
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#11
07-21-2006, 03:01 PM
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went back to this to see how it all ended....over 300 posts, and still remained a relatively clean argument! fantastic. good to see there can be a long (too long??) discussion that stays on topic....
something struck me tho, late in the thread, where someone questioned litf winning the award without beating open company. reminded me of all the posts about azeri getting hoty without facing males. just goes to show you that in any given year, a horse can win without meeting certain criteria that some feel should be met. there will always be 'weak' years for some divisions. consider HOY last year, ghostzapper was in the running based on one race!
__________________
Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all. Abraham Lincoln
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#12
07-21-2006, 03:16 PM
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... for instance ... can you say "Favorite Trick'? He was a nice colt ... but should he really have gotten the sport's highest award ... just for defeating Good And Tough, Dawson's Legacy, Time Limit, K.O. Punch, Case Dismissed, Dice Dancer, Nationalore, Laydown, Jess M ... and various other completely-forgotten who-theys? Even Lost In The Fog beat better competition than that.
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