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Yeats instantly springs to mind.
Yeats??? Might aswell throw Red Rum, Best Mate and Kauto in there.
Mill Reef? Sorry just can’t have that one.
Nashwan I can understand the likes of Cacoethes could barely win a Group 2 / Group 3. Poor opposition.
Nashwan won the 2,000 Guineas, Derby, Eclipse & King George in the one season, I doubt we’ll see that feat accomplished again for a long time. Very harsh to describe him as overrated.
Yeats instantly springs to mind.
Yeats??? Might aswell throw Red Rum, Best Mate and Kauto in there.
Personally, I find it far more difficult to overrate NH horses because jumping makes a helluva difference to a horse’s success.
Red Rum is, quite simply, a legend. No horse can ever equal what he achieved over the then ‘unaltered’ Grand National course.
Kauto Star still has a couple of years left in him to show us what he’s still capable of.
Best mate … would he have been so successful if Monsignor stayed around?
Lammtara (retired after just 4 races, presumably using the old "nothing left to prove" argument ! )
Hawk Wing (a very in and out performer)
Galileo
DenmanLammtara – Never highly rated per say, largely because of his lack of races.
Hawk Wing – When he was in, he was very in.
Galileo – I can’t see how he’s overrated. He was nothing short of imperious over 12 furlongs. He lost his unbeaten record by the shortest of margins to the vastly underrated Fantastic Light before being found out on the dirt which is an entirely different sport. His stud record is already a good way for him to pass the test of time and New Approach seems to be doing his pa proud.
Denman – I just don’t think you like jumpers.
As for the black and white horses, you can only compare them with others from their time. The likes of Pele, Matthews, Moore, Puskas and Best would be laughed off the football pitch in todays game due to their relative lack of fitness and training. However, to say they’re overrated in a contemporary context is to display a shocking level of ignorance with a side of horrifying disrespect for history.
For me it has to be Brigadier Gerard. I honestly believe that Joe Mercer took advantage of the cutthroat early pace that was set by Mill Reef and My Swallow in the 1971 Two Thousand Guineas and pounced when he knew that neither would be able to respond to his well timed late thrust. My own personal opinion is that if Geoff Lewis had tracked Brigadier Gerard instead of slugging it out with My Swallow,we may well have had an entirely different result. The Brigadier was never as truly effective at distances beyond a mile as was made abundantly evident when his limitations were well and truly exposed when Roberto galloped the legs off him in the Benson and Hedges Gold Cup over 1M 2F at York in 1972.
I just don’t understand how Timeform have given him a rating of 144. Ribot, Dancing Brave and Nijinsky were, in my opinion, better racehorses.Lammtara (retired after just 4 races, presumably using the old "nothing left to prove" argument ! )
Hawk Wing (a very in and out performer)
Galileo
DenmanLammtara – Never highly rated per say, largely because of his lack of races.
Hawk Wing – When he was in, he was very in.
Galileo – I can’t see how he’s overrated. He was nothing short of imperious over 12 furlongs. He lost his unbeaten record by the shortest of margins to the vastly underrated Fantastic Light before being found out on the dirt which is an entirely different sport. His stud record is already a good way for him to pass the test of time and New Approach seems to be doing his pa proud.
Denman – I just don’t think you like jumpers.
As for the black and white horses, you can only compare them with others from their time. The likes of Pele, Matthews, Moore, Puskas and Best would be laughed off the football pitch in todays game due to their relative lack of fitness and training. However, to say they’re overrated in a contemporary context is to display a shocking level of ignorance with a side of horrifying disrespect for history.
To say that I dislike jumpers is totally wrong and you don’t know me at all.
I actually much prefer jumping to the flat and I realise that the inclusion of some of my choices was bound to raise some sort of controversy – but I am entitled to my opinion, to which I remain committed.
What I am against is this seemingly all-inclusive use of the word "star" and the frantic search the media have each season for the latest "supestar". I don’t think it is unreasonable to want things to be kept in perspective, and I agree totally that you can only judge any sports performer (be it racing, football, tennis etc) against their contemporaries.
My point is that far too many horses are overrated, in my opinion. I am not asking everyone to agree with me – just stating my view – and there is no absolute right or wrong in any of this. People get remarkably stirred up when others have a slightly different opinion !
I should add that racing is not alone in this trend of overrating – it is there in all sports I think.
For me it has to be Brigadier Gerard. I honestly believe that Joe Mercer took advantage of the cutthroat early pace that was set by Mill Reef and My Swallow in the 1971 Two Thousand Guineas and pounced when he knew that neither would be able to respond to his well timed late thrust. My own personal opinion is that if Geoff Lewis had tracked Brigadier Gerard instead of slugging it out with My Swallow,we may well have had an entirely different result. The Brigadier was never as truly effective at distances beyond a mile as was made abundantly evident when his limitations were well and truly exposed when Roberto galloped the legs off him in the Benson and Hedges Gold Cup over 1M 2F at York in 1972.
I just don’t understand how Timeform have given him a rating of 144. Ribot, Dancing Brave and Nijinsky were, in my opinion, better racehorses.Whilst I respect your opinion Tipstaff, I see it differently.
I think that the Brigadier was a brilliant horse. 17 wins and one second place from 18 starts, almost all of them in the highest company, speak volumes for the horse and it took a course record by Roberto to beat the Brigadier at York. Most of his wins were achieved in impressive fashion (apart from his races on very soft ground) and he was as genuine and honest a horse as you could wish to see.
I don’t dispute the merit of the other horses you mentioned (I was a huge fan of Nijinsky and Dancing Brave, and Ribot was before my time – I was just 3 years old when he ran), but for me, the Brigadier will always be the best I have ever seen, with Nijinsky at number two.
To say that I dislike jumpers is totally wrong and you don’t know me at all.
I should add that racing is not alone in this trend of overrating – it is there in all sports I think.
OK. I shall replace the insinuation that you dislike jumpers with one that simply reads you know bugger all about jumpers. Denman absolutely beasted a group of chasers (such as Exotic Dancer, The Listener and Neptune Collonges (I’m not including Kauto Star because I don’t believe he’s a 26 furlonger)) who would have done the likes of Imperial Call, Mr Mulligan and War of Attrition by a good 14 lengths on their best days. He is a very good horse who’s deserving of all the praise he got and probably wont get from here on in due to a medical malfunction.
I agree that racing is not alone in the scam of overrating for all of life is guilty of the same (apart from giving a loved one a jolly good rodgering).
Bit late in the day – had problems with logging in & then like everyone else have been diverted by Cheltenham, so sorry for resurrecting this thread now.
Has to be Nashwan. Won an average Guineas, arguably the worst Derby ever, beat two over the hill champions (Indian Skimmer & Warning) in the Eclipse, & just scraped home against a bunch of mediocrities in the King George. He wasn’t even the top-rated middle distance 3yo of his generation.
Good sire, though, I’ll admit that.
Bit late in the day – had problems with logging in & then like everyone else have been diverted by Cheltenham, so sorry for resurrecting this thread now.
Has to be Nashwan. Won an average Guineas, arguably the worst Derby ever, beat two over the hill champions (Indian Skimmer & Warning) in the Eclipse, & just scraped home against a bunch of mediocrities in the King George. He wasn’t even the top-rated middle distance 3yo of his generation.
Good sire, though, I’ll admit that.
Hmmm…off topic completely, but just yesterday and for the first time in about 17 years, I was mumbling the lyrics to ‘where’s me Jumper’ by Carter USM (I’m not even a fan!)….and then a newcomer to the forum logs in….called Carter USM….
How weeeeeeeeird?!!
That’s scary. I’m not a fan either – my surname just happens to be Carter, and I only wish I could (still?) live up to the Unstoppable Sex Machine bit.
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Cousin Vinny and Best Mate
I was mumbling the lyrics to ‘where’s me Jumper’ by Carter USM (I’m not even a fan!)….
"Where’s Me Jumper" was not by Carter USM, ‘fraid to tell you – it was by short-lived Irish nutjobs Sultans Of Ping FC;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxmZZBJQAKM
"My brother knows Karl Marx,
He met him eating mushrooms in the peoples park,
He said ‘What do you think about my manifesto?’
‘I like a manifesto, put it to the test-o.’Took it straight down to meet the anarchist’s party.
I met a groovy guy, he was arty farty,
He said ‘I know a little latin man a cus man a kai’
I said ‘I don’t know what it means’ he said ‘neither do I’….."etc.
One of my fave tunes of 1992. Unutterably wonderful stuff.
gc
Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
Ah Sultans of Ping. ‘Give him a ball and a yard of grass……’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNQMo-Wq1_U
And Carter USM are much missed too. Well, by me anyway.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM__XvVDvH4&feature=related
Bless you for those links, Andrew – years since I’ve heard "Sheriff Fatman"! Long since had a soft spot for "Bloodsport for All" and "Shoppers’ Paradise", too.
Dearie me, what a way to bring up the 5,000 – meditating on bad-haired, big-shorted
Evening Session
-endorsed bands of my mid-late teens. Next week: from Binocular to "Kill Your Television" by Ned’s Atomic Dustbin in six easy steps…
gc
Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
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