City of Light and Justify HOY

[Silver Charm]

Nobody should come on here and pound their chest about flopping on to a 9-5 on a speed favoring track wer soaked track out of a sire who was a Gulfstream Park Freak. So I wont.

After watching the race one has to wonder where Justify would have fit in this race. With this crew. It wouldn\'t have been that long to wait and less than a handful of challenges needing to be met. Having beaten all the great horses he beat in his 4 Stakes career its tiltalating. Bolt D\'Oro SA Derby, Good Magic, Audible, Bravazo, Gronk all have gone on to win a combined one Stakes race. Being declared one of the the All Time great as the HOY Trophy was Awarded kind makes me wonder. Do people in the Industry think we are this stupid? That the next 3-4 race SUPERSTAR horse is what we are all withing for? Credit to all the Winners yesterday. I know they waited and ran for a lot of money. But least they proved it on the track in real competition.

[ajkreider]

I\'m with you on who he beat, but the horses that ran yesterday didn\'t do it on 3 weeks rest, let alone 2 weeks.  We forget how uncommon that is in the states.

And yeah, Quality Road loved him some GP.  But City sure looked good at Churchill, too. Lots of negative numbers on the sheets of those horses looking small in Javier\'s rear view mirror.

[boardedup]

Who’s comparable as of late? Crushed grade 1 sprints, BC champ at middle distance, and dominated the world’s richest route for an encore.  Fired every single time, regardless of track, conditions, competition, all in all a great career.  For my money a (much) more impressive career than going undefeated for a few months in the spring, though “history” will remember it differently I’m sure.

I still can’t help but think if Firing Line changes leads in the KY or Bravazo finds his best a stride sooner in MD the last two triple crowns don’t happen.  I know you can’t do that, and you can’t do any better than winning every time you were loaded.  But I’d like to see more than a 3-6 month win streak to be considered an all time great.  Especially now going the way of less and less starts at the highest levels of the sport.

Like, I used to despise Tommy Brady and the Patriots.  But now after 18 years of sustained excellence I tip my cap and actually hope they get another one.  Same as Jordan and the Bulls of the 90’s.  There’s something to be said for prolonged greatness.  The longer you do it, the more impressive in my book, and unfortunately you just don’t and won’t get that in racing ever again for the obvious reasons.  

Money talks, but as a fan you certainly wish you could see the battles settled on the track as 4 & 5 year olds.  Hell even the second half of the 3 year old campaign in Justified’s case.  Think about the hype train and the potential money that would follow into the pools if you had super star rivalries that lasted for a couple years as opposed to a couple months?  I really do think the difference would be dramatic.  That’s the stark difference of today as opposed to the glory days of decades past.

[Silver Charm]

I totally agree. But when you say 3-6 month hot streak it\'s more like a 3-6 week hot streak.

This sport is not about racing horses anymore. It\'s about racing to the breeding shed. 90% of these breeding operations dont care about the fans and 50% of the ownership groups are in the same bucket. The other 50% are fans themselves so they do care. Its sad....

[jma11473]

The fact that hundreds of horses participated in the Derby prep races and that the Triple Crown was targeted by all those horses doesn\'t mean anything as far as who Justify beat? It\'s not the same as winning a 5-horse Grade 1 when there are four other similar races around the country that weekend. Obviously retiring early sucks but that\'s been going on for 40 years.

When a team wins the NCAA tournament, do they have to directly beat every other good team in the tournament, or if they lose earlier in the bracket does that count? Your comparisons and logic are weak per usual.