W O W ! ! ! !

[MargieRose]

Originally Posted by Fager Fan

Certainly he'll stand at stud and at a valuable initial fee, but a legacy at stud is based on how they perform at stud.

He has one very big drawback as a stud - he's by Unbridled's Song. UBS is pretty unpopular as the sire of a stallion prospect. He is not a sire of sires. Even worse, his offspring are passing on his unsoundness, particularly soft bone.

UBS still has a couple opportunities to show he can sire a decent sire. Will Take Charge is his top current prospect and may be his best because he looks to be much more his mother's son than his dad's. Arrogate will be his last shot, and while he seems to be his father's son and that's been great on the track, that doesn't bode well for him at stud.

His talent will draw a good book of mares initially along with having an owner who can support him, but many breeders will be looking at him with a skeptical eye and make him prove it first. It'd help if he proves soundness on the track but we won't see great longevity from him as surely he'll retire by year's end.

A very well-stated rebuttal, and it is precisely why a horse like CA Chrome, who does have proven performance, stamina, soundness and longevity, and who does have a decent pedigree, should be more valued at stud.

For the sake of the breed, why is selective breeding not, like in natural evolution, based on survival of the fittest? Wouldn't everyone, especially the horse, benefit in the long run? How many millions of dollars have been lost, due to break downs? Wouldn't improving the breed, overall, lower the investment risk?

[GMB@BP]

Originally Posted by dilanesp

I think you don't underrate the difficulty of putting a career together.

I mean, Bo Jackson is the greatest athlete I ever saw (and I saw a lot of him with the Raiders). But he didn't have a Hall of Fame career.

Thats fine...

Bo Jackson is one of the best running backs I can recall. Definitely better than Emmit Smith, gun to my head, you give me a guy to tote the rock for the money in a game, I take him no doubt. Along with that guy Sanders.

[overthehill]

when he won the travers I put him in the call of Seattle Slew , ,Affirmed , Alydar , Spectacuar Bid. so I am not surprised that he won the way he did. I cant say whether he is better than those horse but certainly in that class.
Bear in mind that when Chrome won the race last year he won it just a bout as easily 4 wide the whole way and just eased past the rest of the field.

[Fager Fan]

Originally Posted by MargieRose

A very well-stated rebuttal, and it is precisely why a horse like CA Chrome, who does have proven performance, stamina, soundness and longevity, and who does have a decent pedigree, should be more valued at stud.

For the sake of the breed, why is selective breeding not, like in natural evolution, based on survival of the fittest? Wouldn't everyone, especially the horse, benefit in the long run? How many millions of dollars have been lost, due to break downs? Wouldn't improving the breed, overall, lower the investment risk?

It's a conundrum. The owners need soundness but also need the horse to be fast in order to win some races and hopefully start getting some of their money back on their investment. Unfortunately, unsoundness and being fast often go hand in hand. With so many people (breeders and owners) doing their own thing instead of collectively trying to improve the breed, we have to basically luck into sires who pass on soundness. It takes a long time and a lot of foals before a sire proves himself to be passing on unsoundness. With UBS, the soundness factor was relatively overlooked and his ability as a sire of sires was probably what made him most unpopular in just his last few years at stud. Now we have people who covet UBS mares because their offspring are doing well but no doubt the lack of soundness is getting passed on. It's a continual weakening of the breed that is very hard to reverse.

I hear that in the old days when the blue bloods ruled the sport, they'd cull for soundness because they had to race what they bred. That sounds great and good for the breed, though the unfortunate weak foal to be born was walked to its burial spot and shot. I assume mares were similarly culled.

I can only hope that sound stallions become hot commodities.

[ultracapper]

Enter him in those sub-$1M preps and he's going to be out there by himself. Just how many races do you think would get filled with him entered? Then the bitch would be he's beating 3 tomato cans month after month.

The racing calendar is what it is, and he is what he is. Too much for anything in training right now.

[Lemon Drop Husker]

Originally Posted by MargieRose

A very well-stated rebuttal, and it is precisely why a horse like CA Chrome, who does have proven performance, stamina, soundness and longevity, and who does have a decent pedigree, should be more valued at stud.

For the sake of the breed, why is selective breeding not, like in natural evolution, based on survival of the fittest? Wouldn't everyone, especially the horse, benefit in the long run? How many millions of dollars have been lost, due to break downs? Wouldn't improving the breed, overall, lower the investment risk?

Arrogate is from better breeding and is 2-0 against Chrome while he was at his absolute best.

Not sure this is even a question, but hey, Chromies will be Chromies I guess.

[whodoyoulike]

Originally Posted by Lemon Drop Husker

Arrogate is from better breeding and is 2-0 against Chrome while he was at his absolute best.

Not sure this is even a question, but hey, Chromies will be Chromies I guess.

This is what makes Arrogate's last two performances that much more impressive.

I also agree that CC was at the top of his game.

[EMD4ME]

I heard most of this same gushing 2 years ago...

I'm glad this time around it's for a horse that TRULY deserves it.

[dilanesp]

Originally Posted by ultracapper

Enter him in those sub-$1M preps and he's going to be out there by himself. Just how many races do you think would get filled with him entered? Then the bitch would be he's beating 3 tomato cans month after month.

The racing calendar is what it is, and he is what he is. Too much for anything in training right now.

They used to have this thing called "handicap weights"....

[Fager Fan]

Originally Posted by Lemon Drop Husker

Arrogate is from better breeding and is 2-0 against Chrome while he was at his absolute best.

Not sure this is even a question, but hey, Chromies will be Chromies I guess.

You're too caught up in your CC bashing to even understand the discussion.

Apparently you aren't aware that the best racehorses don't always make the best stallions, and every year or two a totally illogical stallion prospect comes out of nowhere. Who would've guessed Tapit would be the next Storm Cat? Who would've guessed Storm Cat would've done what he did either. Who bet that Into Mischief would be standing right now for $75k? Who predicted Vindication would go completely bust after siring enormously high-priced yearlings in his first crop? Secretariat? A bust. So too Spectacular Bid. Affirmed w as a solid but lower priced stallion. The TC winner who would be the good sire was the one who had such spectacular bloodlines and looks that he only.l brought $17k as a yearling (that was Slew if you don't know).

CC is a stallion that showed longevity and top class and we should hope that he makes it. And we should hope Arrogate is another top racer who was a bust. The former has a higher likelihood of passing on soundness, while the latter is almost assured to pass on soft bone and bad feet. None of this has to do with one's opinions of a horse as a racer.

[AskinHaskin]

Originally Posted by Spalding No!

I must have been confused about the goal posts then, because they seem to have changed. I thought we were discussing the abbreviated campaign he is in the midst of, not his talent level. You defended it by (1) suggesting it fits with other recent campaigns of top horses (what horses those are I am at a loss to find) and (2) some fuzzy reconfiguring of the calendar year to start in June as though Arrogate originates from South America. Personally, I don't buy either.

It sounds remarkably like Ghostzapper... whose 4-race HOY campaign began in July.


Ghostzapper has never been sufficiently evaluated for actual talent either.


We know that he was better than the 2-for-37 dog he faced during that HOY campaign.

[Fager Fan]

Originally Posted by AskinHaskin

It sounds remarkably like Ghostzapper... whose 4-race HOY campaign began in July.


Ghostzapper has never been sufficiently evaluated for actual talent either.


We know that he was better than the 2-for-37 dog he faced during that HOY campaign.

It sure is interesting that you chose that handle, because your writing is so completely opposite from the real Haskin, it's almost shocking to read.

What "dog" are you talking about? His challenger for HOY was Smarty Jones, who he never met, and in the Classic, he beat some decent horses, none of which I remember as being the best yet only 2-37 "dog."

[ultracapper]

Originally Posted by dilanesp

They used to have this thing called "handicap weights"....

I bet Baffert, being the horseman he is, would, unlike Frankel for instance, accept most any assignment and give it a go.

[Spalding No!]

Originally Posted by AskinHaskin

It sounds remarkably like Ghostzapper... whose 4-race HOY campaign began in July.

You must be the Uruguayan Haskin. Arrogate's would be 4-race campaign started in January...not July.

I'm certainly not about to sing the praises of Ghostzapper, but let's be fair. The horse suffered from all sorts of soundness problems (quarter cracks, bruised feet, fractured sesamoids). Despite that, his owner pledged to bring him back as a 5yo after his streamlined BC Classic win...he held up for one start. Will Arrogate make an appearance at 5? Perhaps if they can get another Pegasus Cup together for 2018.

Ghostzapper has never been sufficiently evaluated for actual talent either. We know that he was better than the 2-for-37 dog he faced during that HOY campaign.

Again, this is not about talent. Ghostzapper and Arrogate were heads and tails above their competition for the most part. That doesn't justify keeping them in the barn. Look how that worked out for Jack Woltz.

[MargieRose]

Originally Posted by Lemon Drop Husker

Arrogate is from better breeding and is 2-0 against Chrome while he was at his absolute best.

Not sure this is even a question, but hey, Chromies will be Chromies I guess.

How is knowingly passing on the propensity for defective genes considered to be "better breeding?"

And, do you really believe that CA Chrome was at his "absolute best" in the Pegasus? If he were still racing, that race would just be a scratch-off, when evaluating the PPs for his next race. Any astute handicapper would know that!

This has nothing to do with being a "Chromie." It has everything to do with just plain common sense, if one really cares about improving soundness in the breed, of which it doesn't seem that many do. Whatever, CA Chrome is a 'best bet' over Arrogate, in that consideration!

BTW, "Chromie" is not a dirty word, but dismissing and relegating someone's opinion to that descriptive noun makes me think that you think it is.