Does Accelerate now win HOY over Justify?

[alydar]

I have read through the thread and see the merits of many points.
Bottom line, is I expect Justify to win. Triple Crowns are rare and almost impossible to ignore.

[Fager Fan]

He will win. I just don’t think he should as I don’t think he was the best horse to race this year (with record to back it up, lest anyone think I’d say a one-hit wonder was the best).

[surfdog89]

I think Justify will win...got my vote.

[dilanesp]

Justify will win, but he is one of the most undeserving horses of the year in history. He only has 3 legitimate stakes wins (he won a fourth through cheating), all restricted, and in one of them he was life and death to beat mediocrities.

And the deserving HOTY had an excellent year in open competition.

[Tom]

Opinions vary.

[Spalding No!]

Originally Posted by dilanesp

Justify will win, but he is one of the most undeserving horses of the year in history. He only has 3 legitimate stakes wins (he won a fourth through cheating), all restricted, and in one of them he was life and death to beat mediocrities.

And the deserving HOTY had an excellent year in open competition.

Must be a thin line between "mediocrities" and "open competition".

Never mind the fact that Justify was in a duel with the juvenile champion (Good Magic) from the outset of the Preakness, nor the fact that 4 of the first 5 home returned to win graded stakes later on in the year.

As it stands, Mendelssohn and Lone Sailor--also rans behind Justify--finished ahead of West Coast and Pavel in the BC Classic.

Meanwhile, Bravazo finished ahead of Giant Expectations and Isotherm in the BC Dirt Mile before just missing in the Clark, where he finished in front of Prime Attraction.

The significance? 4 of those 5 "open" competitors earned placings in the races Accelerate ran in during his campaign leading up to the BC. In the case of Giant Expectations, he was only 4th in that great renewal of the Santa Anita Handicap, but has the distinction of burying Accelerate by open lengths in the San Antonio run earlier in the meet.

I guess then that Accelerate won 1 legitimate stakes (the BC Classic) where he did enough to hold off a horse that had but an allowance win to his credit in 2018 and in fact hadn't won a graded stakes in over a year-and-a-half.

[dilanesp]

Originally Posted by Spalding No!

Must be a thin line between "mediocrities" and "open competition".

Never mind the fact that Justify was in a duel with the juvenile champion (Good Magic) from the outset of the Preakness, nor the fact that 4 of the first 5 home returned to win graded stakes later on in the year.

As it stands, Mendelssohn and Lone Sailor--also rans behind Justify--finished ahead of West Coast and Pavel in the BC Classic.

Meanwhile, Bravazo finished ahead of Giant Expectations and Isotherm in the BC Dirt Mile before just missing in the Clark, where he finished in front of Prime Attraction.

The significance? 4 of those 5 "open" competitors earned placings in the races Accelerate ran in during his campaign leading up to the BC. In the case of Giant Expectations, he was only 4th in that great renewal of the Santa Anita Handicap, but has the distinction of burying Accelerate by open lengths in the San Antonio run earlier in the meet.

I guess then that Accelerate won 1 legitimate stakes (the BC Classic) where he did enough to hold off a horse that had but an allowance win to his credit in 2018 and in fact hadn't won a graded stakes in over a year-and-a-half.

Spalding, you are just ignoring that those races Accelerate won were open to anyone and Justify's weren't.

How far would you take this? Would you give HOTY to a horse who won a bunch of state bred races or conditioned allowances just because the beaten horses came back and placed in graded stakes.

Accelerate beat far more 4 and 5 year olds than Justify, as well as several 3 year olds that Justify had beaten too. And honestly most of the three year olds Justify beat sucked, and you are cherry picking their records to make them sound like Alydars and Coaltowns.

[Buckeye]

If it makes you feel any better dilanesp, Accelerate wins best older horse and Justify wins HOY.

Best 3 year old ever (in my opinion) was Secretariat.

Best older horse I ever saw run in person was Spectacular Bid.

None of which means anything in the grand scheme of things.

[Spalding No!]

Originally Posted by dilanesp

Spalding, you are just ignoring that those races Accelerate won were open to anyone and Justify's weren't.

You're hanging on to generalizations and ignoring the fine print.

Who cares that the Santa Anita Handicap was open? Any top class that was in form at the time had just run in the Pegasus Cup. That included Gun Runner, West Coast, and Collected, the top 3 finishers in the BC Classic as well as Sharp Azteca. Giant Expectations, who dusted Accelerate in the San Antonio by over 3 lengths was 60-1 in the Pegasus and got beat a pole...

The Oaklawn Handicap? Accelerate lost. To a horse that had only been in one "open" race (that drew only 5 horses) up to that point and had never been around two turns.

There was but a single shipper from Accelerate's "open" races in CA collectively. That was Fear The Cowboy, a 75-1 shot in the Pegasus (and only 9-2 in the Big Cap), who was winless the rest of the season.

The average "open" field size Accelerate faced in CA was a paltry 7.

Meanwhile, restricted to 3yos or not, Justify won the Kentucky Derby a race that would have over 20 starters every year if Churchill didn't put a cap on it a few years ago. Whether or not horses were ultimately injured (Magnum Moon, My Boy Jack), burnt out (Bolt d'Oro), compromised by conditions (Mendelssohn), or skipped other races in the series (Audible) is really besides the point. They came from all corners, many with credentials that put them in the frame as contenders, and got run off their feet by a preternatural talent that was confirmed three times over.

How far would you take this? Would you give HOTY to a horse who won a bunch of state bred races or conditioned allowances just because the beaten horses came back and placed in graded stakes.

This is nonsense. You can try and pretend that the Triple Crown races are just like any other 3yo stakes race, but to compare them to state bred races and conditioned allowance races is an appalling joke.

Accelerate beat far more 4 and 5 year olds than Justify, as well as several 3 year olds that Justify had beaten too. And honestly most of the three year olds Justify beat sucked, and you are cherry picking their records to make them sound like Alydars and Coaltowns.

Who cares about their age? Muhaabtij was winless in 2018. West Coast was winless. Prime Attraction was winless. Fear the Cowboy was winless. Isotherm was winless.

The best horses he beat before the BC were City of Light, who had already beaten him at his own game while mostly campaigning around one-turn, and Dr. Dorr, who basically was a stand-in for Accelerate (who ran at Oaklawn instead) in the Californian when pummeling the same horses the latter was facing in his "open" victories.

That Oaklawn trip proved to be a twofold miscalculation on Sadler's part. It kept Accelerate from being unbeaten on the year and it also showed how terrible his competition was out in CA. Dr. Dorr, who was primarily sprinting and had never raced further than a mile, won the Californian by over 7 lengths.

And just for giggles, the other horses Accelerate beat in CA that had more than 1 win on the year were Ike Walker and Shades of Victory. The former won 2 races with a claiming tag on his head. The latter won 2 races that were--you guessed it--a state-bred race and a conditioned allowance race...

[rastajenk]

Might as well close the thread after that one.

Although dilan never gives up on having the last word.

[dilanesp]

Originally Posted by Buckeye

If it makes you feel any better dilanesp, Accelerate wins best older horse and Justify wins HOY.

Best 3 year old ever (in my opinion) was Secretariat.

Best older horse I ever saw run in person was Spectacular Bid.

None of which means anything in the grand scheme of things.

I never saw Secretariat. I did see the Bid though. And it is distressing to me that if, say, Genuine Risk had won the TC in 1980, she would have won HOTY over the Bid. But she would have, and it's wrong.

[dilanesp]

The Oaklawn Handicap? Accelerate lost. To a horse that had only been in one "open" race (that drew only 5 horses) up to that point and had*neverbeen around two turns.

This is what I mean by cherrypicking.

While literally true, this is a completely dishonest evaluation of City of Light's abilities. Spalding's post is just a parade of this. If he would be fair and not stack the deck in his arguments, that would be one thing. But he casts all of Accelerate's rivals in the worst light and all of Justify's in the best light.

EDIT: and he flat ignores that Accelerate buried some of the supposedly good three year olds from Justify's class in the BC Classic.

[Spalding No!]

Originally Posted by dilanesp

This is what I mean by cherrypicking.

While literally true, this is a completely dishonest evaluation of City of Light's abilities. Spalding's post is just a parade of this. If he would be fair and not stack the deck in his arguments, that would be one thing. But he casts all of Accelerate's rivals in the worst light and all of Justify's in the best light.

This is inaccurate. In fact, you're guilty of this "dishonest" evaluation. You refer to Justify's competition as mediocre, but only describe Acclerate's competition as "open company". You refer to Triple Crown races as "restricted" but call older horse races that draw 6-horse fields as "open to all". Who's being disingenuous?

All my posts running down Accelerate's rivals were in response to you or someone else telling us that Justify's competition was "mediocre" or "didn't' support his HOY credentials". Rather than dispute that, I simply showed that the same could be said of Accelerate only I actually backed it up with the bare facts while you and others expect us to take your statements at face value simply because Justify only ran against 3yos and didn't partake in the "open" races that Accelerate did.

And I hardly painted Justify's race rivals in a positive light. But the facts show that despite not winning, several of Justify's also-rans finished in front of Accelerate's also-rans in multiple races.

Here's an easy question that should put your all-important "3yos vs. 4yo/5yos" benchmark in perspective.

Does the 3yo crop of 2018 rank lower than the 3yo crops of 2016 and 2017? The question is relevant because guess where all these mighty 4yos and 5yos Accelerate was blasting were coming from...

[alydar]

Originally Posted by Spalding No!

You're hanging on to generalizations and ignoring the fine print.

Who cares that the Santa Anita Handicap was open? Any top class that was in form at the time had just run in the Pegasus Cup. That included Gun Runner, West Coast, and Collected, the top 3 finishers in the BC Classic as well as Sharp Azteca. Giant Expectations, who dusted Accelerate in the San Antonio by over 3 lengths was 60-1 in the Pegasus and got beat a pole...

The Oaklawn Handicap? Accelerate lost. To a horse that had only been in one "open" race (that drew only 5 horses) up to that point and had never been around two turns.

There was but a single shipper from Accelerate's "open" races in CA collectively. That was Fear The Cowboy, a 75-1 shot in the Pegasus (and only 9-2 in the Big Cap), who was winless the rest of the season.

The average "open" field size Accelerate faced in CA was a paltry 7.

Meanwhile, restricted to 3yos or not, Justify won the Kentucky Derby a race that would have over 20 starters every year if Churchill didn't put a cap on it a few years ago. Whether or not horses were ultimately injured (Magnum Moon, My Boy Jack), burnt out (Bolt d'Oro), compromised by conditions (Mendelssohn), or skipped other races in the series (Audible) is really besides the point. They came from all corners, many with credentials that put them in the frame as contenders, and got run off their feet by a preternatural talent that was confirmed three times over.


This is nonsense. You can try and pretend that the Triple Crown races are just like any other 3yo stakes race, but to compare them to state bred races and conditioned allowance races is an appalling joke.



Who cares about their age? Muhaabtij was winless in 2018. West Coast was winless. Prime Attraction was winless. Fear the Cowboy was winless. Isotherm was winless.

The best horses he beat before the BC were City of Light, who had already beaten him at his own game while mostly campaigning around one-turn, and Dr. Dorr, who basically was a stand-in for Accelerate (who ran at Oaklawn instead) in the Californian when pummeling the same horses the latter was facing in his "open" victories.

That Oaklawn trip proved to be a twofold miscalculation on Sadler's part. It kept Accelerate from being unbeaten on the year and it also showed how terrible his competition was out in CA. Dr. Dorr, who was primarily sprinting and had never raced further than a mile, won the Californian by over 7 lengths.

And just for giggles, the other horses Accelerate beat in CA that had more than 1 win on the year were Ike Walker and Shades of Victory. The former won 2 races with a claiming tag on his head. The latter won 2 races that were--you guessed it--a state-bred race and a conditioned allowance race...

Pretty compelling argument by me!!

[Spalding No!]

Originally Posted by dilanesp

EDIT: and he flat ignores that Accelerate buried some of the supposedly good three year olds from Justify's class in the BC Classic.

He beat Mendelssohn and Lone Sailor by less than 5 lengths. How far back were these in the Kentucky Derby?

You can say McKinzie was beaten on the square, too, but I posted multiple times here during the winter/spring that McKinzie was at best a miler, never mind that he was only making his 2nd start off a 6-month break in the BC Classic.

If you are trying to include the clobbered and injured Catholic Boy or the Euro experiment Roaring Lion than you simply are pulling everyone's leg.