- This topic has 477 replies, 83 voices, and was last updated 16 years, 3 months ago by
.
- Posts
Back in the days of the other legends mentoned, did they have trainers throwing in pace setter like O’Brien does ?
I think Vincent O’Brien may have started the pacemaker business in the 60’s but if you remember the race the call the "Race of The Century" between Grunday and Bustino in the 1975 King George, there were two pacemakers for the latter and he still got beat.
As for Sea The Stars, a brilliant performance, one of the very best. Up there with Ribot, Sea Bird and Mill Reef of post war Arc winners without question. Mick Kinane gave him a brilliant ride.
A little observation was the fact the owner made no attempt to lead his winner in, thus giving the stable staff their place in the limelight. They deserve that as they do much of the work. Well done Mr Choy, more owners should follow his example. I know some will disagree with me on this but it is something I have a thing about.
- Total Posts 17716
Kinane knew he had that in the bag 1f out, his speed is incredible, BBC went on about the traffic problems but he never had that much of a problem, he had quite enough space to power him through once he made that burst it was all over, like a Pacquiao punch on Hatton.
Youmzain I will never get to the bottom of him, how can a horsse lose to Getaway and Ask get so close to superstars.
Fame And Glory was probably the hard luck story of the race, he was flying level with Youmzain until he met Stacelita’s tiring backside, very bad call from Murtagh who should have went wide and probably cost him 2nd.
Conduit just didn’t have the turn of foot to win this and probably wants rock solid ground to show his true ability. I think he will defend his BC Turf win and bag another G1.
Tell you what Red I though Ryan Moore gave Conduit a shocking ride being upsides Sea the Stars so early but there’s no way on earth would have won or came near to it. Nor would Fame and Glory have finished 2nd in that race. He got first run on Youzmain was finding next to nothng under an extremely powerful driving from JM nothing. Both Youzmain and Conduit were in the process of passing him when that incident happened. Plus it was about 55 yds from the line..you really do have a bad doze of Fame and glory mate and you should accept the fact he finished where he finished and nothing Johnny Murtagh could have done would have gained got him into the first 3. I’m no Youzmain fan but by hell he was motoring to some tune and would have been a brilliant winner without Sea the Stars no matter what.
Was Zarkava lit up like some wild mustang for the first half mile? Just something else to throw into the mix while you’re at it!
Both horses have one thing striking in common though…
Like Zarkava, I doubt STS’s true level of invicibility will never be known; he’s like an elastic band with limitless stretching capabilities and breaking strain…if you know what I mean.
- Total Posts 17716
Sea The Stars is the 2nd fastest ever Arc Winner.
Edit – actually 3rd ever fastest.
I suppose we would have to say that it was to be expected with AOB running pacemakers yet again. It may look like the field are ignoring them but what happens is the field do tend to go a little bit faster to keep them within striking distance just in case, so you end up with a fast run race.
Considering there was so many horses finished in a bunch behind Sea the Stars I doubt the time is really that significant as they’ve all run fast times. If he had won by 5 lengths and 5 lengths in a very fast time that would be a different story.
Kinane knew he had that in the bag 1f out, his speed is incredible, BBC went on about the traffic problems but he never had that much of a problem, he had quite enough space to power him through once he made that burst it was all over, like a Pacquiao punch on Hatton.
Youmzain I will never get to the bottom of him, how can a horsse lose to Getaway and Ask get so close to superstars.
Fame And Glory was probably the hard luck story of the race, he was flying level with Youmzain until he met Stacelita’s tiring backside, very bad call from Murtagh who should have went wide and probably cost him 2nd.
Conduit just didn’t have the turn of foot to win this and probably wants rock solid ground to show his true ability. I think he will defend his BC Turf win and bag another G1.
Tell you what Red I though Ryan Moore gave Conduit a shocking ride being upsides Sea the Stars so early but there’s no way on earth would have won or came near to it. Nor would Fame and Glory have finished 2nd in that race. He got first run on Youzmain was finding next to nothng under an extremely powerful driving from JM nothing. Both Youzmain and Conduit were in the process of passing him when that incident happened. Plus it was about 55 yds from the line..you really do have a bad doze of Fame and glory mate and you should accept the fact he finished where he finished and nothing Johnny Murtagh could have done would have gained got him into the first 3.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_s … 289630.stm
Wrong
To say Moore gave Conduit gave a bad ride is not right he had the clearest run, I cant have F & G is not being effected by Dar Re Mi and Stacelita being in the way 2:34 of the vid clearly shows he was really unlucky. He would have surely passed the fillies going the outsides. He is looks to be sailing past Dar Re Mi until Stacelita faded badly and hampered him, its clear on evidence. Also when he gets blocked he is level with Youmzain. The point would be good to have when he faces the horses again that he would have done better.
I put knob-on-block saying Sea The Stars was a penalty kick. I’d have done the same with Zarkava in the field.
Does anyone seriously think a filly could beat the best 3yo colt of the last ‘x’ amount of years?
Survey says…
So how do you rate a horse that’s done it all?
I think you’ve inadvertently hit the nail on the head, Fist. To rate any horse, you have to have seen it’s running, and in this instance I think that is key.
The fact is, we have yet to see Sea The Stars pull out all he’s capable of. He’s a 140+ horse running against mere, yet top-class, mortals. Given his running style, it would take a Mill Reef or a Dancing Brave to even force the full monty out of Sea The Stars, and sadly those types of rivals are lacking in this era.
I think it’s fair to say that unless you saw one of the true greats- Seabird II, Secretariat or similar- that today you witnessed the best horse of your lifetime shove all criticism well and truly down the throat of his critics. The rest may remain subjecture, but, as with in all of his imperious G1 wins this season, Sea The Stars will forever remain with that little something up his sleeve.
QUOTE ME! Channon is saying Youmzain is bouncing at home and ready to run a big race. Just seen him 16/1 with Coral to finish 2nd again, i’ve seen worse bets thats for sure. You just cannot get away from him from what he,s achieved in the race coming in with a similar profile.
Bookies price the race on form but I’d be shocked if an older horse beat him Conduit probably the most dangerous of the older horses. However with a bit of rain the guarenteed good gallop his turn of foot is underrated and he looks primed with Fallon on board to find one too good again! QUOTE ME!Its time I blew my own trumpet even though I was disappointed with Stacelita today having seen a true champion in STS. But I gave everyone the biggest ARC winner for years!
Sea The Stars is the 2nd fastest ever Arc Winner.
Edit – actually 3rd ever fastest.
I make it joint-4th.
1997 Peintre Celebre 2:24.6
2004 Bago 2:25.0
2000 Sinndar 2:25.8
1987 Trempolino 2:26.3
2006 Rail Link 2:26.3
2009 Sea the Stars 2:26.3All 3yos interestingly.
QUOTE ME! Channon is saying Youmzain is bouncing at home and ready to run a big race. Just seen him 16/1 with Coral to finish 2nd again, i’ve seen worse bets thats for sure. You just cannot get away from him from what he,s achieved in the race coming in with a similar profile.
Bookies price the race on form but I’d be shocked if an older horse beat him Conduit probably the most dangerous of the older horses. However with a bit of rain the guarenteed good gallop his turn of foot is underrated and he looks primed with Fallon on board to find one too good again! QUOTE ME!Its time I blew my own trumpet even though I was disappointed with Stacelita today having seen a true champion in STS. But I gave everyone the biggest ARC winner for years!
You were also very adamant that your namesake would reverse Vermielle running with the granite-jawed Filly, Dar Re Mi.
- Total Posts 17716
Somebody offer the Aga Khan £10m to compete in a Seabiscuit-esque match race and let’s end this ‘Zarkava is better than Sea The Stars’ nonsense once and for all.
That’s the first time I have been excited by a flat horse this season.
It really was a mighty performance. Everything about him oozed class, his gait, his coat, his size, his swagger.
How many horses could pull as he did and get that rough passage and still make it look easy?
If he takes to the surface he will surely win the BC Classic.
The only sadness, and it is a great one, is that he will not run as a 4 year old. If he could have done that and asserted his supremacy then I think he would have been labelled the best ever in the UK. The 4yr old test really is the next level of judgment for any great horse.
Shame. Yet at Longchamp he did show something scary and nerve-tingling – true potential for legendary status.
Zip
Two points.1. People keep pushing the envelope. If he wins the Arc he will be the best ever…. if he wins the BC he will be the best ever…. if he runs as a four year old he can prove he is the best ever.Those people want to find a way to get him beaten just to prove he is not the best ever.
2. People say the filly won last year under a hands and heels ride. This implies that if whipped she could have gone faster.Such is only an assumption and I have been to the races for 60 years to recognize an assumption which does not play out in reality. Most horses with such a high cruising speed have little more to give when asked.This is as easily assumed in her case as the contrary.Just something to ponder.- Total Posts 17716
A great race, won by a great horse, but to rate it a 141 performance would put an inordinate number of horses in the high 130’s imo. To put some kind of perspective on it, Nijinsky would have finished no better than 5th – were both ratings correct.
Fist wrote
I though Ryan Moore gave Conduit a shocking ride being upsides Sea the Stars so early but there’s no way on earth would have won or came near to it.Imo he should have been handier, if anything. He was left standing when the taps were turned on entering the straight and had to pass most of the field from that point. The winner apart, he finished fastest of the lot, and had the ground been a little more testing, he would certainly have been at least 2nd, imo.
God knows what to make of Youmzain after running like a crab all season, maybe it was the blinkers or the Fallon factor; either way he’s run by far his best race of the season. Still think he’d have won more races in more capable hands though.Question for forumites…
Is the view among racing hisotrians that decades on from horses mentioned on this thread (such as Mill Reef and Dancing Brave) we are generally living in times of more attentive handicappers and equine science, so therefore various animals of the breed have broken barriers in recent history legitimately, down to factors like better feed, more rigourous training methods, more knowledge of what works in breeding etc? Or are we seriously not taking in to consideration any factors other than the raw performance of the horses 30 years apart?
To simplify this, does it not make sense for horses to improve upon things horses did 20 or 30 years ago?
Marble, I agree:
I made a similar point in the questions to Timeform, basically….
I realise times primarily are to do with pace and how fast the going is; they are difficult to compare. But there are no course records left from the 1960’s which suggests those horses racing in the present decade are (as a group) faster (better) than their relations of 45 years ago. And this despite watering (making the ground “slower”) being far more prevalent these days. Therefore, it seems reasonable to suggest the best horses of this decade are capable of running faster (are of higher merit) than their 1960’s counterparts. In the same way Bolt can be thought of as a better sprinter than Lewis.The 145 given to Sea Bird by Timeform, should (in my opinion) be a rating to show how much better he was compared to rivals of his era. I do not see the rating as comparable to 2009. There’s been many advances with training and feeding methods in the last 45 years. Are / were trainers wasting their time, if racehorses of the 60’s were capable of better form? Racing is far more competitive these days, you only have to look at big handicaps. Even in the 80’s, the bottom weights were often some way out of the handicap; yet today they are usually nowhere near automatic bottom weight. So, if racing is more competitive today. It stands to reason the best horses will not be as far clear (in merit) as their rivals; compared to back in the 60’s.
Let’s just celebrate Sea Bird, Mill Reef, Dancing Brave and Sea the Stars as brilliant Arc winners.
Fist, you make some very good points but allow me to point out ….
There is very little prospect Timeform will put up Sea The Stars rating after yesterday’s performance, on the contrary they’re more likely to reduce it. The rating produced to win the Arc by two lengths from Youmzain, with heads back to Cavalrymen and Conduit was probably not his best. Youmzain’s rating may go back to last year’s 131. Unless they think Jabber’s inconsistent six year old improved; just about possible blinkers made a difference; but I doubt it. Conduit I believe ran to form on 130 and Cavalryman improved. Fame And Glory ran below form, not getting a good ride and hampered; probably made no difference to the result. Sea The Stars performance probably a little below form, worth a rating of around 135+ or 136+. Zarkava and Sea The Stars Arc wins deserve to be rated equal, allowing for the former being a filly with a sex allowance. But the Aga’s girl was at her best.
Sea The Stars’s “below form” rating (if I am right) should be put in to perspective. It’s still possible he’s better at ten furlongs. But I prefer to put it down to pulling early on, hampered more than once and not being in the best position. Oxx’s super Star’s turn of foot was electric and a tremendous performance, all things considered.Value Is EverythingWhat The Arc proved yesterday is that Sea the stars is not only a machine,he is an intelligent one!His natural instinct was to chase those pacemakers early doors,because he wanted to pass them!Mick reeled him in,but STS was still thinking let me get em!Getaway wanted to come up his inner on the bend at a crucial point,team STS shouldered him out!Still trouble ahead and yet STS extricates them with ease into a challenging position,Mick is basically a passenger,a shake of the reins and
instant acceleration,the race is over!An awesome display of power and finesse!Now my mate Youmzain on the other hand lacks
intelligence,until Arc day that is,when everything falls into place for him to run 2nd!Youmzain only finished 2nd yesterday because he was chasing STS,the rest of the field were of no concern to him,had STS not run,Youmzain would still have finished 2nd,thats Youmzain i"m afraid,and there isn"t a bigger fan of him on here than me!I always forgive him mind as
66/1,33/1 and 33/1 still pay well to a place!
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.