Klown;

They say that brevity is the soul of wit, and - via the inverse - you prove that with every post.

\"If a future Barbaro bred wins the Derby in late April, the Preakness in June and the Belmont in August, (at 1 and 3/16\'s miles by the way), they may call him the first Triple Crown Champion since Affirmed. To the young and inexperienced he will be the equal of Affirmed.\"

... and ...

\"Old and experienced horse fans may understand that there is no comparison between Affirmed\'s exploits and Barbaro II\'s exploits, but they will be mentioned in the same breath and those drawn to the wonderful world of Horse racing will see them as having accomplished the same great feat.\"

I get it. This is not about you. It\'s all about the children, right? And the inexperienced. And those old and experienced ones who just don\'t get it. You are really just looking out for the immature, the ignorant, the (experienced) morons, right? I feel much better now. I thought you were speaking for true race fans, but I\'m much more at ease with you speaking for the immature, the ignorant, and the morons. Rock on!

\"So in that regard will the Triple Crown mean as much as it use to and if not how can you call Barbaro II a Triple Crown winner?\"

Hey! You said that changing the spacing would diminish the accomplishments of previous Triple Crown winners. Now you\'re saying that it only diminishes the accomplishments of future Triple Crown winners. Which one is it?

\"And who today holds Babe Ruth and Roger Maris in as high regard for their single season accomplishments?\"

Actually, to the discerning fan, those records look better with each passing day (even if Maris hit 61 in an expansion year and the Babe never faced the great black pitchers of the day in a game that counted). That\'s the point, Klown! Any accomplishment comes with a context. Did Native Dancer need to beat Dark Star to be a great horse? Or, only to be a TC winner? Was Go For Wand counterfeit because she broke down?

\"Or in other words were their monumental accomplishments overcome by the changed circumstances of artiface?\"

Whew! Stick to the other words!

\"Hope you didn\'t stay with Bro Derek for that Preakness. Although, you did seem to be going the right direction against him in the Derby. That is before you went with him, if I recall correctly.\"

Your recall, along with many other of your traits, is faulty. Try again.

Time to go. Gonna hitch my rhythm wagon to a star and fly on out of here.

To quote an absent poster who is sorely missed here ...

Later. May they all come home safely!
 

 

Shanahan;

Love your New Yorker cartoons! But this post???

\"Secondly, if athletes (horse) are indeed bigger and faster, doesn\'t that go against the argument to make it easier/more convenient?\"

This is the Thorograph board. If horses are indeed faster, doesn\'t the methodology here suggest that more - not less - spacing would be prudent?

 

Silver;

There is no better time to agree with you than when you are disagreeing with the Klown.

Klown \"wrote\" \'Between Citation and Secretariat 25 years went by without a triple crown winner. Then there were 3 Triple Crown Winners in 6 years.\'

Yes. And in those years Native Dancer and Northern Dancer did OK, as I recall. Whatever happened to them? I guess 2 out of 3 makes you a bum and 3 for 3 makes you Bucephalos? (not in spell check, damnit!). Was there supposed to be a point in there?

\"There is nothing wrong with the Current Triple Crown spacing that a good horse and a little luck won\'t overcome.\"

Yeah, it\'s great the way the TC chews up the best legs of each generation. It\'s nice we don\'t need to watch these horses (Silver\'s namesake and Victory Gallop being the \"recent\" exceptions) as 4YOs, even if their owners were otherwise obliged to be \"sports\". Hell, they can barely make it to the Travers or the BC already!

Silver, your point about spacing is spot-on. The TC is easier now because all the best horses take their shots in KY, skip the Preakness (unless they win the Derby), and maybe they show up in NY 3 weeks later. They have plenty of spacing in the British Triple Crown, and no one has won that three-fer in decades BECAUSE IT\'S TOO DAMN HARD!

Making something - arguably - less difficult does not make it easy. In what other race does a trainer take his best horse, and run him/her in Grade Ones two weeks apart? Does running the Wood two weeks earlier make the TC easier?

I\'m done. Thanks for letting me vent!

I\'m hoping this does not bring on a severe case of colic, but, here goes ...

CTC wrote \"However, it appears he feels like true race fans feel\" ...

Who the f%$! voted you the arbiter of what true race fans feel? If there is such a club, and if you decide what we all feel, I resign effective immediately!

Those \"true race fans\" feel that \"Changing the Format would cheapen the accomplishment and belittle what the great horses of the past achieved.\"

Claptrap! How does anything that happens today diminish what happened in 1973 or 1948? You would have to have the simplest of minds, the most feeble excuse for an intellect, to think that were so. Changing the spacing in 2007 might diminish the accomplishment ... in 2007 or 2008. But it would have no bearing on what was accomplished 33 or 58 years ago.

Calling you a miserable excuse for a human being would be a mistake. It cheapens the accomplishments of all the other miserable excuses for human beings.


 

 

The best stuff is always in the backstory. So, 20 years and five weeks later, if Victory Gallop doesn\'t get up (or, if the stewards are given a chance to demonstrate their gutlessness and oblige) he ties Alydar as the only horse to finish 2nd in all three races to a TC winner. Ol\' VG had more than Stevens on his back that day.

Some would say \"Grateful Dead concert ... that sucked\" is redundant. Instead, I\'ll just concur with Richiebee that you were sorely mismedicated.

Jimbo;

I was just going off the chart (Equibase says SF stumbled badly at the start), which explains why SF was 8-10 lengths off the lead at the start of the backstretch instead of much closer to the first flight, which I would have expected with his speed and 7 post. Granted, SF did get a rail trip otherwise. If the rail was dead, then SF ran even better than I thought. Regardless, my point was that the SF would have passed PD\'s neck and nose with only a slightly better trip. I didn\'t follow PD in the replay, but the chart does not indicate he had anywhere near the trouble SF did.

I was asking Jerry about the start because it didn\'t seem like anyone else here especially noticed it. Of course, I has SF to win and under SL in the exacta, so I may have a little bias going myself.

BTW, this is Bob (magicnight), using the wife\'s PC while out of town. Take care!

Jimbo;

\"You can make a case for 3rd with a different trip\"??? (He lost 3rd by a neck).

I couldn\'t see how bad the stumble out of the gate was (Jerry, please weigh in), but based on where SF was at the start of the backstretch, I\'d say he lost 2-3 lengths easy. SF then made a big move on the turn and had to wait for an opening at the top of the stretch. Without either bit of trouble SF beats PD and without both he\'s in the exacta.

I think this falls into the \"Condolences and Congratulations\" camp. Helluva purchase JB! Congrats to you and Mr Parra.