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Originally Posted by Spalding No!
Not sure who this subset was that tried to beat him in his listed stakes, Grade 3 starts, or races where Visitant was his main rival.
I'm sure there were some taking a stand against him in the Whitney and the Woodward and they were proved correct (thus not underrating him).
Perhaps he was at a disadvantage style-wise in the 2 NY races (although that might be debatable) and you could write off his defeats there based on that rather than his relative talent/class, but as it stands he lost his 3 most important races this year and did nothing outside those losses to offset them.
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There were plenty of people on my Twitter timeline talking about trying to beat him after his 2yo season all the way through this last race.
To me, the only subpar race he ran was out in California. Knicks Go proved to be the best horse in the country and Art Collector controlled the pace on him (that’s the race I played against him).
You can only beat who they put in front of you, but you can look good doing it (or not) and you can consistently show up (or not). If you do both, IMO that’s saying things about reserves of quality that figures alone don’t. He has a nice turn of foot, always shows up, and as this last race proves, can be put in the race early if need be. I guess what I’m saying is he’s somewhere between “a great horse to play against” and a HOTY candidate and a little better than his numbers.
