Jul 29, 2007

Best All Time Thoroughbred: Who?

Choosing Best All Time anything is a difficult task. It's also fun and inspiring and pleasantly causes the blood to pump. Guess that's as much why we do it as it is to "prove" who was the best.

In thoroughbred horse racing, I've got three, perhaps five, bests who are really difficult to separate. Strangely, four of them are from the far past. Were thoroughbreds better back then?

Who could say that Count Fleet (1943), then Citation (1948), weren't as good as the obvious standard bearer of the first seventy-five years of the sport, Man o' War (1920)?

The second seventy-five years gave us the most handsome fellow in horse flesh to ever grace a race track, Secretariat (1973). Watching him on TV gave me the goosebumps, even though Native Dancer, thoroughly televised in the 1950s, was my first horsey hero. I loved watching the Grey Ghost of Sagamore, but I was a bit young and inexperienced for goosebumps then.

There was another Big Red I fell for through my middle age as I expanded my thoroughbred horizons. His name was Phar Lap (1929), a seventeen hand Aussie from New Zealand stock. How the Australians loved him! Still do. He ran in the depression era for the Aussies, an idol and counterpart to America's Seabiscuit (1936). His legend and his facts are awesome.

In 51 races, he won 37 times. And he comes with a captivating story, even today. Major goosebumps.

Who was best?

Well, I'm a real sucker for a chestnut, and Secretariat was brilliantly and beautifully coated and conformed. The Aussie fellow was lanky, lean, and angular.

In the end, though, head to head, I think the Aussie's taller Red might have taken America's second Big Red.