Spectacular Bid

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by miraja2

For sure?

These horses were before my time, so I can't say definitively, but when you factor in Secretariat's superiority at distances beyond 10f - and the ability he showed on turf - I have hard time saying anyone is "for sure" better than him historically.

I said top rated - not necessarily better. There was no 4-year-old season from Secretariat.

To me - Secretariat is hands down the greatest 3-year-old of all-time in terms of how he performed in the triple crown series. It's not even close. But the triple crown series isn't the be all - end all. Mine That Bird ran strongly in it - while horses like Skip Away didn't - and others like Tiznow missed it.

However - Secretariat actually ran 3 pretty darn slow races in his preps leading into the Derby. They found a tooth abscess after his sound Wood Memorial defeat to Angle Light. Obviously he was a brand new horse again after that.

He was defeated in two of his three dirt races against older males. Prove Out absolutely smoked him at 12 furlongs. Big Red's two turf races were both GREAT - but you're talking about American turf racing.

In terms of attempting to rate them - Big Red and Bid are close through their 2yo and 3yo season .. the deciding factor for me is one ran at 4 and the other didn't.