Who wins?
A real Christmas cracker
- Desert Orchid
- Kauto Star
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Particularly remember the 89 VC. Parents knew I’d backed Panto and – watching the TV – I shouted him on going into and away from the last fence… Then half-way up the run-in – and without thinking – suddenly changed to cheering on Desert Orchid. Passing the winning post knew he’d got up. Didn’t have a penny on the fabulous grey, but celebrated big time… which confused my parents no end!
Value Is EverythingKauto was probably the classier horse, but Dessie had the fighting spirit and always pulled out more when required. Dessie in his best year ran and beat the best at 2 miles up to 3 miles in the King George finishing with a rare left handed win in the Gold Cup. To be honest even left handed he ran well. It was his jumping that probably let him down.
You've got to accentuate the positive.
Eliminate the negative.
Latch on to the affirmative.
Don't mess with mister in between.I think Kauto Star has suffered in this poll from not having a nickname like “Dessie.”
Not being a grey is doing him no favours either.
It’s all image, marketing and PR nowadays!
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"To be honest about Ratings, horses don’t run to beat horses from a different year, they just run to beat the current field if they can.
You've got to accentuate the positive.
Eliminate the negative.
Latch on to the affirmative.
Don't mess with mister in between.“KS won the biggest jumping prize twice, both times decisively”
Applying that logic, Golden Miller is the best steeplechaser ever.
Ipso facto.
Don’t think the Gold Cup was the race we know today or even back in the eighties when Golden Miller ran, back then I think it was used a warm up race to the National. The best national hunt horse has to be Arkle. The best flat horse has to be Secretariat even though he ran in America only or Eclipse even though he ran in the eighteenth century. Both had massive hearts.
You've got to accentuate the positive.
Eliminate the negative.
Latch on to the affirmative.
Don't mess with mister in between.“eighties when Golden Miller ran”
I suspect RR meant to write thirties.
Got me rereading this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Miller
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Sorry poor punctuation, after eighties should be a full stop and when GM should be beginning of a new sentence. GM did run in the thirties. Won the Gold Cup 5 times and grand National once.
You've got to accentuate the positive.
Eliminate the negative.
Latch on to the affirmative.
Don't mess with mister in between.To be honest, in my mind, the King George is a better race than the Gold Cup; that is often a slog, and some dour stayers have won it. The King George tends to be won by a classier type of horse.
Trying to choose who is better is almost a toss of a coin; both were versatile over varying trips, and could take on top class 2 milers and beat them, then in a few weeks beat the 3 milers at Kempton.
I’d probably edge towards Dessie as he lumped huge weights in handicaps, and often won them.
“The best flat horse has to be Secretariat”
You spelt Premio Loco wrong
Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
For me Secretariat’s best flat horse tag is based mainly on his staggering Belmont win – that being said, I think the form of the race is incredible suspect when you consider Sham.
He was 2nd beaten just 2.5L in both the Kentucky Derby (in which the horse hit his head on the stalls losing two teeth in the process) & the Preakness (both races run in track records) and Sham had actually finished ahead of Secretariat in the Wood Memorial earlier that season.
In the Belmont it had been noted that he sweated up badly before the race (something he never did previously) and whilst he matched Secretariat in the early fractions he was quickly eased and trailed in an extremely long last of the 5 runners – he never ran again because not long after it was discovered that he had fractured a cannon bone and was retired July 1973.
He clearly ran no sort of race in the Belmont and whilst in no way am I suggesting he would have won it, he most likely would have been a close runner up based on the first two legs of the Triple Crown (the first time the same two horse had finished 1st and 2nd with the exact same winning margin seperating them) and if that had happened in the Belmont would Secretariat have been lauded to the same extent that he is today?
Back to the original question – many might think Kauto was the ‘classier’ type but was that because he didn’t ‘slum it’ by running in handicaps and with Dessie he had a much more common man type of background with his very unusual breeding story and the no nonsense prickly ‘Elsie’ running the show?
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