Originally Posted by King Glorious
I've always had a huge problem with Mineshaft getting as much credit as he does and being named HOY in 2003. While he certainly was a good horse, they were extremely fortunate that year with him. While you don't ever want to criticize anyone for chosing a schedule that includes the Pimlico Special, Foster, Suburban, Woodward, and JCGC because those are the races you are supposed to run in with a horse of that caliber, I think that you have to look deeper than the names of the races that year. It's not his/their fault that none of the other top older males showed up to face him in those races. Most of the supporters of Mineshaft say that they were ducking him. I don't think that was the case at all. Either way, there remains the simple fact that 2003 was a pretty good year for the older male division. That season, we had Candy Ride, Medaglia d'Oro, Pleasantly Perfect, Congaree, Perfect Drift, Mineshaft, and Milwaukee Brew. While most of those horses were locking horns with each other several times during the year, taking turns knocking each other off and tarnishing each other's records, Mineshaft got away virtually unscathed. I think that those seven I named above were the general consensus seven top older males that year and Mineshaft only had to face ONE of them (Perfect Drift) and he only faced that one horse ONE time (in the Foster) and he LOST that one matchup. I feel like in a lot of ways, that situation is not unlike 2010 with Zenyatta. While Blame was taking on the best of the older horses all year (Battle Plan, Haynesfield, and Quality Road), Zenyatta was facing second and third rate horses all year and beating them and then in her one matchup with a top horse, she lost. If you wonder where this current trend of connections playing duck soup really took off, where less became more, I think 2003 is a good place to start.
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02-09-2011, 11:27 PM
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