Winning Colors vs. Rags to Riches

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by Indian Charlie

i'm going to go against the grain (and a very popular idea here) and say that since winning colors was a shell of her former self after the preakness, that her bc loss to PE diminishes PE somewhat.

or maybe i'm not saying that right. what i'm trying to say is that even a ruined WC, far from her best, still almost beat PE. a perfectly healthy and sound WC romps in that race.

I see what you are saying here but that would mean that you have to believe that Winning Colors was only a shell of her former self after the Preakness. I don't believe that to be anywhere close to true. For the Belmont, she obviously was worn out but after getting some time off, she came back better than ever and I think her races in the Maskette and BC Distaff were as good as her efforts in the spring.

Prudery makes the point that the track conditions in the BC were not to Personal Ensign's liking and that may have comprimised her some. I don't know if that's true or not. PE ran a winning race in the Whitney on a sloppy track when she beat Gulch and there is no way to actually know how much a horse likes or dislikes a track.

My opinion is not that PE defeated a lesser version of WC but a better one. And as impressive as the BC win was, I was even more impressed by the Maskette win because it came at a shorter distance that should have been even more advantageous to WC.