Invasor?

[Silver Charm]

Flach wrote

\"IMO, horses like Ghostzapper and Invasor.........certainly rate above the horses that ran exceptionally well in spots and deserve some kind of special recognition for that.\"

I believe they got that when they were named Horse of the Year.........

Five years from now you will struggle to remember their names. But you will never forget Bid, Slew, Affirmed, Big Red and others like Man O\'War and Citation even though you never even saw the latter two even run.

[fkach]

We are very close in our opinions. I guess I think they were better than the \"typical\" horse of the year and will be remembered by most degenerate horseplayers like me for being a bit special. ;-)  

I even think it\'s possible Bernardini may have been on the verge of greatness. He will be forgotten by most though.

[Silver Charm]

>Bernardini may have been on the verge of greatness. He will be forgotten by most though.

He has disappeared from everyones memory so quickly he may as well have been named Houdini.............

The only thing more I have to say about these cheap-retire-them-early-great-ones is....

Who is running this weekend???

[Silver Charm]

NC Tony,

My last post in this string I said would be my last on the subject. I guess I lied. Also by all accounts from everyone I have heard about regarding you NC Tony. You are great guy, an expert handicapper, and clearly by your story about being there when Forego mowed em down, a real fan. So this is not an attack on you but just on some of the logic that Invasor was one of the all-time greats. And not that you were leading the charge.

I read Dave Litfins analysis/article in the Sat DRF and in discussing the Suburban he mentioned two horses who were previous winners: Mineshaft and Skip Away. I think I have a pretty good memory but a horse like Skip Away clearly slipped my mind and those calling Invasor great, well it slipped theirs also.

Skip away closed his four year old campaign with dominating wins in the Jockey Club Gold Cup and the BC Classic at Hollywood Park after the connections anti-ed-up and supplemented. Clearly a bold move. Skip Aways five year old season, please read below.

Donn Handicap-126.lbs-WIN
Gulf Park Handicap-127.lbs-WIN
Pimlico Special-128.lbs-WIN
Mass Handicap-130.lbs-WIN
Hollywood Gold Cup-124.lbs-WIN
Iselin Handicap-131.lbs-WIN
Woodward-126.lbs-WIN

Skip Aways ankle began going bad, he lost the last two, one at CD, a track he never really like anyway.

Skip Away did this over the same 12 month span that stretched the entire 12 month American racing career of Invasor. Skip Away competed in major races at two, ran in all three Triple Crown races at 3. Ran in the Travers and beat Cigar in the Jockey Club Gold Cup the same year.

His resume compared to those of horses such as Invasor and Bernardini is so lopsided that to even mention them in his class is a disgrace. The financial incentives today may be so great that to continue risk running horses is not worth the odds. Be that as it may, no one should be bringing down the achievements of GREAT HORSES who ran and competed before the currents ones.

Simply in an effort to send the current ones off to some highly publicized stud career..............

[fkach]

I hope you aren\'t including me in the group that \"lead the charge\" for calling Invasor an all time great because I lead the charge for calling him a \"pontential all time great\". ;-)  

I do think there\'s a difference between horses like Skip Away/Mineshaft Invasor/Ghostzapper and some of the all time greats (I didn\'t forget either Mineshaft or Skip Away).

Obviously greatness is a somewhat subjective topic. We aren\'t all going to have the same criteria. For me, I want more than a single year or series of great races to be called an all time great. A great year or great series of races is just that, a great series or great year.

I like when they come out running great at 2 and continue developing from there. That\'s why my list tends to include horses like Fager, Slew, Affirmed, Bid, Secretariat etc....  Obviously, I\'m going to include Forego because even though he started a little slow he didn\'t just get sharp for awhile. He dominated for years.

Invasor fits my criteria well because he was a champion right from the start and was still getting better. The issue is whether he did enough. To me, he and Ghostzapper didn\'t do enough to be included in that elite group above, but they performed well all the way and may have reached that elite level if just given more time on the track. That\'s different from Skip Away.

[Silver Charm]

I am not putting Skip Away in the level of,

\"horses like Fager, Slew, Affirmed, Bid, Secretariat etc....\"

But Flach don\'t you think the Skip Away\'s of racing history are at an even higher level of greatness than the Invasors and Ghostzapers. I mean for gods sake when the Racing Secretary put 119 on Ghostzapper in the Iselin and 123 in the Met Mile Frankels comments were,

\"They\'re trying to kill him.\"

[richiebee]

This debate wont go away, so I cant go away.

1) You can call Mineshaft, Skip Away, Ghostzapper,Invasor,the Professor and
all the rest \"Great\", as long as you call Fager/Secretariat/Slew/Bid/Forego \"Immortal\".
Its been 30 years since the \"Decade of Champions\". If people are still talking
about racing in 30 years, I dont think they will be talking about \"Shaft\",
\"Skip\",\"Zapper\" and Invasor.

Notes: (a) Of the \"Great\" 4 above, I dock some points from the Zapper, who did
most of his \"Great\" work over one strip: Belmont;

(b) Skippy was campaigned like one of the bluebooded owned runners of the
Decade of Champions. His owners/trainer, Sonny and Caroline Hine, kept him
running out of love and pride. Skippy beat Cigar, who somehow is not usually
mentioned on these \"Great\" lists. I dont know what the TG stallion index says,
but the get of Skippy has been good to me especially on turf and off going;
will be interested to see synthetic numbers on his runners.

(c) If Invasor was not injured, he would have run no more than four more races
in his career. (There would have been the possibility that Jerkens could have
beat him at 15/1 in the Suburban, no?). If he repeated in the BC Classic, it
could be said that he put together two consecutive years which were borderline
Immortal.

(d) Fkach, I do not understand why you would put that much emphasis
on \"precocity\", brilliance as a 2YO. I guess as careers get shorter it will
become ever more important though.

(e) Unfortunately, the Triple Crown and especially the Derby will be accorded
too much weight in judging the historical ranking of runners.The Triple Crown
is an aberration as far as racing goes. Many Triple Crown runners will never
compete in a 20 horse field ever again after the Derby. Many Triple Crown
runners will never be tried at 10 or 12 furlongs ever again. Many Triple Crown
runners will not be weighted at 126 ever again in their careers. The 3 race in 5
week series is more a question of endurance than racing brilliance. The
emphasis on the Derby in specific and the Triple Crown has been one of the
culprits in early equine retirement.

(f) The closest thing I may have seen to \"Immortality\" since the turn of the
Century may be Ouija Board.

[fkach]

\"Fkach, I do not understand why you would put that much emphasis
on \"precocity\", brilliance as a 2YO. I guess as careers get shorter it will
become ever more important though.\"

Not a lot of emphasis, but I like to see greatness stretched over multiple years and you rarely get a multi-year older horse career except with geldings. So the 2YO and 3YO record counts for me.  

When a horse starts out great and continues to develop through their 3YO and 4YO season, that consistent level of greatness often says something about their ability that getting razor sharp for a few races or a single season does not.

Look at all the legendary horses. Almost all of them came out running and kept getting better. There are some exceptions that were either handled improperly early or that were geldings with long careers, but for the most part they came out running.

Best Pal and Formal Gold ran some astonishing races in their careers when they were going extremely well, but their overall careers were not great.

Cigar is one of those \"exception\" horses I talked about above where you just have to discount his early career on turf because they didn\'t know what they had. I do consider him a great horse, but I think he was overrated (that\'s another story. ;-)

[coachbowlin]

I agree that Ouija Board was as close to immortal as we\'ll ever see again. She was owned by Lord Derby who puts the competition of racing over the money made in the shed. No, I\'m the first to admit that she wouldn\'t beat Big Red or the Bid going 1 1/4 on the dirt but I doubt you can name ANY filly or mare that could have beaten her covering a bit of ground on the turf. In that corner of the racing world she was and is the best I\'ve ever seen or probably will ever see. I got goosebumps watching her pull away in the \'06 BC stretch knowing that I was seeing one of the truly great ones.

[P.Eckhart]

For me, Pride would beat Ouija Board any day of the week.

 



coachbowlin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>but I doubt you can name ANY filly
> or mare that could have beaten her covering a bit
> of ground on the turf.

[Silver Charm]

Richie lets put this in perspective.

If Invasor and Ghostzapper are two of the greatest horses of all-time as the articles I read this past week were saying.

Then Ernie Els and Jim Furyk are two of the greatest golfers of all-time.

Phil Mickleson is off the charts...........

[richiebee]

SC:

The people who call Invasor and Ghostzapper \"Great\" need to do this to promote
the sport. If you put Invasor or Ghostzapper on the track with Fager,
Secretariat, Affirmed, Slew, Bid or Forego, there are only 2 words which
describe Invasor and Ghost: \"Also Ran\".

Funny you mention PGA golf, which is becoming more and more like Racing, with
the big names playing less and less. For the second straight week, there is a
wild finish at the PGA event which involves none of the household names.

I\'ve embraced golf with renewed fervor this Spring, and have been able to lower
my handicap by a couple of strokes. Part of my renewed interest in Golf has
been enabled by an absolute lack of interest in racing in New York; the current
Belmont meet looks a lot like Colonial at Belmont to me, with card after card
composed of one meaningless turf race after another.

[coachbowlin]

I was expecting someone to call me on Pebbles or Miss Alleged but not that one. Excuse me for not knowing any background on Pride but I know she\'s not won two BC races with a runner up in between. OBoards most impressive stat may be that she got beat less than 2 lengths in the Arc as a 3 year old against the best grass horses in the world. That same year she also won the Irish Oaks, the Epsom Oaks by 7...Pride must have been really, really good. Sorry that I never heard of her. Can you give me some background on her? I\'m not saying she isn\'t a great horse, I just don\'t know anything about her.

[Michael D.]

Give me a ten race series, 1M to a mile and a quarter races, and this is how I see the all-time greats finishing.

1. Secretariat
2. \'Bid
3. Fager
4. GZ
5. Swaps*
6. Affirmed
7. Alydar
8. Forego
9. Invasor
10. Bernardini
11. Northern Dancer


* I don\'t see Swaps getting enough mention in the \"Greats\" category. A quick review:

Most people in racing can tell you that Swaps beat Nashua in the 1955 Kentucky Derby and that Nashua beat Swaps in the famous match race later that year at Washington Park. But, most aren\'t aware that the match race was Swaps only loss in nine starts as a three-year old.

And much like another horse almost 25 years later -- Spectacular Bid -- if Swaps was a super star at three, he was an absolute monster at four. Both lost the Horse of the Year vote at three, but came back to be Horses of the Year at four.

In the 1956 volume of \"American Race Horses,\" historian Joe Estes reports that Europeans were convinced in the summer of 1956 that the 4-year-old Ribot was the best hose in the world. But in America, people were equally convinced that \"Swaps was the best horse in the world, and in all probability, the best horse that ever laid a hoof on a race track.\"

A sore spot on his right front hoof that plagued Swaps through his sophomore season continued to give him problems at four. It was an injury that could never be expected to heal entirely.

Trainer Mesh Tenney pointed Swaps for the Santa Anita Handicap in the winter of 1956, but the colt\'s tender hoof never permitted proper training. Swaps started only once at Santa Anita, winning an overnight handicap carrying 127 pounds and easily defeating Bobby Brocato (who would go on to win the Santa Anita Handicap).

Swaps then headed for Florida and another possible meeting with Nashua (that was not to be). On April 14, under the impost of 130 pounds, Swaps won the Broward County Handicap, taking a full second off the Gulfstream track record and lowering the world record for one mile and seventy yards to 1:39 3/5.

He returned to Hollywood Park and was beaten a head in the Californian Stakes by Porterhouse when jockey Bill Shoemaker allowed the horse to relax too much in the final sixteenth.

In his next five races -- covering a span of just seven weeks -- Swaps put on an exhibition at Hollywood Park such as had not been seen since Man o\' War ran in 1920. In five consecutive races, Swaps set three new world records, equaled one world record and broke the track record by a full second in the other.

He won the Argonaut Handicap on June 9 under 128 pounds, breaking the track record for one mile by 1 3/5 seconds. The final time of 1:33 1/5 also broke Citation\'s world record.

In the June 23 Inglewood Handicap, under 130 pounds, Swaps ran 1 1/16 miles in 1:39, breaking his own track and world record set a year earlier by 1 2/5 seconds. He passed the mile marker in this race in 1:32 3/5.

On July 4, in the American Handicap, Swaps (130) was eased in the final sixteenth and *only* broke the track record and equaled the world record for 1 1/8 miles set by Noor in 1950 (1:46 4/5).

Ten days later, in the Hollywood Gold Cup, Swaps (130) took one full second off Rejected\'s track record. The final time of 1:58 3/5 for the one mile and one quarter was 2/5s off Noor\'s world record.

Finally, on closing day of the Hollywood Park meeting on July 25, Swaps (130) breezed to an effortless victory in the Sunset Handicap, breaking the world record for one mile and five eighths by 2 2/5 seconds. His final time was 2:38 1/5. That\'s still the world record for dirt in 1997.

Shipped to Washington Park, Swaps was soundly defeated on a soft turf course in the Arch Ward Memorial Handicap. (A year earlier, he had won the American Derby at Washington Park in the fastest 1 3/16 miles ever run on the grass in America.)

On September 3, Swaps ran his last race. In the one-mile Washington Park Handicap, he cruised home in front in a new track record of 1:33 2/5.

While prepping for the United Nations Handicap at Atlantic City, Swaps reinjured his hoof. He was entered in the race and appeared on the program, but was scratched just an hour before the race. Later, at Garden State Park, he suffered two small fractures while training and was retired.

As a sire, Swaps had 35 stakes winners (8%) from 425 foals. His best offspring were without doubt the iron filly Affectionately and the champion colt Chateaugay (Kentucky Derby, Belmont Stakes).

Swaps was put to sleep and buried at Spendthrift Farm in November 1972. Fourteen years later, his remains were reinterred in the gardens of the Kentucky Derby Museum, just a hundred yards of so from the finish line of one of his greatest victories.

[fkach]

\"If Invasor and Ghostzapper are two of the greatest horses of all-time as the articles I read this past week were saying. \"

Which articles suggested that?

I didn\'t read anything like that.