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I fear rose-tinted romanticism maintains its unyielding grip on the memories of yesteryear, defiant in its struggle to maintain the purity of former champions.
We all know that racehorses, like ahtletes, aren’t machines and performances of outstanding merit may not necessarily be replicated on a regular basis. Indeed, Donovan Bailey appeared on the sprinting scene in 1996, broke Leroy Burrell’s world record of two years when capturing Olympic gold in Atlanta and was forgotten almost as soon as he had arrived. But the Canadian serves to illustrate the need for distinction evident in this particular case.
A ‘140 horse’ is very different from a ‘140 performance’, with the achievement of the latter not always leading to the application of the former.
In Harbinger we have a horse who justifiably ran to a mark of 140 at Ascot, with the legitimacy of the form of those behind substantiated by previous racecourse evidence. That doesn’t mean he is yet a 140 horse as such a term implies consistency and repetition, but a lack of existing comparable analyses does not detract from the merit of any individual performance.
Carl Lewis dominated sprinting from 1981 until the early nineties and it was inconceivable during that time that anyone could (or would) run 100m in under 9.8 seconds. But whilst he is still remembered as one of the finest performers in athletics history, such feats have subsequently been readily achieved. Maurice Greene clocked a time of 9.79s in 1999 and Jamaicans Asafa Powell and Usain Bolt have conspired to force the current record down to a staggering 9.58s.
Asafa Powell will never be mentioned in the same breath as Usain Bolt, or even Carl Lewis, because at no stage has he run consistently and with regular success. That doesn’t mean though that times of 9.77s, 9.76s and 9.74s are any less meritorious or that he can’t rightfully take his place on the all-time list of the world’s fastest men.
I sometimes think we place too much emphasis on the need to represent horses with a number, at least when it comes to those from the upper echelons of equine history. Perhaps we would be better defining individual performances and in the process afford the champions of tomorrow the opportunity to rest alongside the champions of today.
Harbinger is worth every point of the rating awarded to him after Ascot; we just need to know if it was a ‘140 performance’, or if he’s a ‘140 horse’.
Simply cant have it that Harbinger is one of the greatest horses of all time…
The point is that Harbinger’s Ascot win – in which he smashed up a last-time Irish Derby winner, a triple Arc winner, a Hong Kong Vase winner and a last-time Derby winner in a very good time – is being rated as one of the best single performances of all time.
A triple Arc winner?? I know Youmzain is a likeable beast and all, but…..
I take your point – maybe all these freakishly good performances are just that – freakishly good one-offs, rather than performances that need to be adjusted down when the horse fails to live reproduce them. No way of really proving that either way.
Guess the interesting point is whether any of us believe he can reproduce that level of form. I don’t.
A triple Arc winner??
Just checking that anyone was reading what I had written.
In order to run another 140, Harbinger not only needs to be capable of running to 140 (I think he is) but needs to run in a race that gets that sort of a performance out of him.
In the absence of more than a small handful of 130+ horses (or those that have been allowed to be rated 130+ at least
) he has to beat up "second-raters" like Irish Derby winners and triple Arc seconds.The nature of racing means that he may not do that again in what remains of his shortish career. But that is not the same as saying he couldn’t do it. He just did!
Will be very interesting to see how he gets on in the Juddmonte International, especially if Rip Van Winkle turns up against him.
Some back of fag packet splits vs the last race against points on the rails.
G1 Hcp
38.22 38.28 ~3f
1.46.59 1.51.18 ~9f
2.26.52 2.31.93 12fThe first 3f were roughly the same, the last 3 were about 5L quicker, the middle 6f were about 27L quicker.
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