Wouldn’t they prefer he just keep racing, if ya know what I mean?
Oh, and I’m glad someone added a link to Secretariat winning the Belmont about an hour and a half before the other horses showed up. Great video. That horse must have been some sort of genetic freak.
A great race, but not the best ever.
Consider this one (Bonus: Fred Capocella – race starts about three minutes in).
Or, if you want come-from-behind, there’s this.
Certainly awe-inspiring, but it’s like watching a 500 yard homer. For me the best horse race would be Alydar vs. Affirmed in the 1978 Belmont, but then I like pitchers’ duels. Dig the fancy graphics from 30 years ago.
Reality Chuck, I love a great come from behind finish–and what a treat to watch Forego deliver it!
A few years ago, a friend of ours had a really nice filly named Got Koko who ran like that every race. She’d be nowhere until the final furlong, then WHAMMO! We teased him that they should have named her Heart Attack. She swept the graded stakes filly/mare series at Santa Anita and was 3rd in the Breeder’s Cup Distaff before being retired and sold for something like $4 million. Not bad since he bought her for $35,000! 
She remains one of our favorites from his barn.
Funny you should mention that. As it turns out, Secretariat WAS a genetic freak.
Enjoy,
Steven
Especially since Forego was carrying 18 pounds more than Honest Pleasure*. I watched the race live and figured at the top of the stretch that Forego was completely out of it.
Oh, I definitely love come-from-behind horses over frontrunners. Good for your friend.
*Honest Pleasure is one of those horses who always looked good, but never could win the big one. He couldn’t catch Bold Forbes in the Kentucky Derby, and wore himself out in the Preakness when he tried.
They may well have been more exciting (well, hell, most definitely more exciting!), but they weren’t the greatest ever. Secretariat blew away the record time for the mile-and-a-half, it hasn’t been touched since, and he did it without any pressure from another horse. That horse just flat out ran like it wanted a record time.
To me, that’s the best race ever. Watching it was like watching a very important part of history.
P.S.: I do remember watching Affirmed and Alydar all three races. Very disappointing, as I was rooting for Alydar and my sister was an affirmed Affirmed rooter. :mad:
So, The Grinch was Secretariat’s sire? Dang, you learn something new every day.
It all depends on how you define “greatest.”
Greatest single performance. Probably.
Greatest race – no, because there was no competition. I think a great race requires more than just one horse going wire-to-wire, not matter how dominating he was.
No competition? Did you forget that for the first half the race Sham was right alongside him? A horse which, had it not lost by a small margin to Secretariat, would have set a new record for the Kentucky Derby? Sham’s Derby time was thus no worse than the fourth fastest time in history (behind Secretariat, Monarchos, and Northern Dancer) and may have been the second fastest time in history. There were some seriously strong horses in that race, horses I’d back against pretty much any non-Secretariat horse. Secretariat made it look easy, but I promise you it wasn’t. Sham would be a champion today, almost certainly. He and Secretariat were BOTH setting records for the quarter mile when they were running neck and neck in the first half of the Belmont.
Enjoy,
Steven
It doesn’t matter. Without someone running with you in the stretch, the race isn’t particularly exciting.
Maybe Sham would have won another year, but so would Alydar. But Alydar vs. Affirmed is a classic race because there was doubt until the final instant who would have won.
Let’s say you held a ticket on Secretariat when he hit the stretch. You’d be feeling pretty confident, right? Now consider holding a ticket on Forego in the Marboro Cup*. Your horse is way behind at the top of the stretch and it looks like there’s no way he’s going to win. Which would you think is more exciting?
Or holding a ticket on Sham at the top of the stretch. It’s over. But if you held a ticket on Honest Pleasure – it’s nail biting time.
Ultimately, a great horse race is a great competition, and unless there is a battle down the stretch, it’s hard to call it a great competition.
*Or, as the networks had to call it, “The Cup,” since they couldn’t mention cigarettes (yes, it was named for that Marlboro).
I think we’re generally in agreement, but whereas you’re using “great race” to mean “exciting/suspenseful race” I’m using “great race” to mean “a race which was a supreme accomplishment/feat.”
I could make an arguement that an experienced horseman/race fan would have found a ton of excitement/suspense in the last half of the '73 Belmont. In one of the videos I’ve seen there was a biographer of Secretariat’s who was there and was talking about how apprehensive he was during the last half of the race. Secretariat was running faster than pretty much any horse had, ever. The limits of horses as to how fast they can run without injuring, perhaps killing, themselves was the opponent which was neck and neck with Secretariat at that point. People who know horses, and who know racing, were biting their nails because this horse was running beyond the known capabilities of his species. In modern racing terms he was redlining. At any moment he could have stumbled or broken a leg, indeed most horses probably would have if they were going that fast. The biographer said he remembered screaming “What are you doing! You’re killing him!” and when Secretariat finished the race without self destructing he said he nearly fell out of his seat with relief. That’s a nail-biting moment in my book.
Enjoy,
Steven