Quote:
Originally Posted by cj
Was poorly worded, it was very late and I was a few drinks in. 
The point was all things being equal, of course the best horses are going to set course records. But all things aren't usually equal, namely the tracks. Even on the lists you provide, I'd say very few of the track records were set by the best horse to run at the track and distance. There are a lot of very good to excellent horses in your lists that nobody would confuse for hall of famers.
Tracks change day to day, year to year, and decade to decade. The increase in awareness for horse safety has slowed racetracks in my opinion. Thus, I think it is tougher for horses to break track records now than it was 40 years ago.
I certainly wasn't throwing shade at Ruffian, just a more general discussion about using track records as an accomplishment. She was before my time but her record speaks for itself. The track records are just fluff on top. |
Fair enough; I think we are basically on the same page. I'm usually wary of track record performances, too, the exceptions being when top horses make a habit of beating the clock. That's my reason for emphasizing it in the case of Ruffian. Really only Secretariat, Spectacular Bid, and Swaps are other horses I can think of (I'm sure there are more) where IMO the raw times of their races rise above mere fluff and bolster their resumes.
Otherwise, in general even if a top class horse breaks a track record, there's a good chance the track was "glib" that day. When Monarchos went "as fast as Secretariat" in the Derby a 3yo filly on the undercard broke the 6.5f track record in a first condition allowance. In the modern era when track management orchestrates these big, multi-stakes weekends its not uncommon for the track surface to be adjusted. However, it would be too coincidental to think that Ruffian was lucky enough to run on nothing but "tailored" surfaces that many times, especially since those bloated race cards were not the standard back then as they are now.
