Quote:
Originally Posted by AskinHaskin
My God, Seattle Slew's 3yo campaign was of similar duration, and he lost a race, while there were muuuuuuuuuuuuch better older candidates in the wings than there are today, and 'Slew was also a no-brainer for HOY honors.
HOY 2018 was DECIDED before mid-June of 2018. It's that simple.
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Some of the same people that didn't think highly of Slew don't like Justify now and didn't think much of Pharoah either. That sentiment is primarily the result of the speed figures they look at.
I get the argument (not in Slew's case because they were so obviously wrong about him at the time given his Derby trip and subsequent race record), but so much of figures is pace/trip/race flow related and these horses are so much more lightly raced coming into these Triple Crown races than years ago. So IMO, they should be judged differently than the horses from years ago. IMO, Triple Crown horses will now tend to develop a little later (as Pharoah was doing until he got stopped). So we won't get to see the stream of 120s they might have earned if they stayed healthy and kept developing unless they come back at 4-5.
