After Barbaro won the Derby, i got to thinking about the concept of the 'great horse'. When you think great horse, the image of Secretariat streaking 31 lengths clear of the next closest rival to complete a TC flashes in your head.

The media loves greatness. They love to be able to 'talk up' the next great superstar. I'm not sure why we are all enamored with great horses. After all, we are horseplayers looking to beat the next 3-5 shot and make a nice score. Sure, seeing a tremendous athlete is nice, but crushing the tri and super is nicer.

I heard Andy Beyer on TVG the yesterday and he was saying that this was the time..he felt that 'this was it' for the next Triple Crown. Andy was not alone, many felt the same thing. The perception was that Barbaro was a great horse, head and shoulders above the 2nd fastest 3 year old and he would go out the next two weeks and prove his dominance by winning the TC.

All the 'experts' agreed. This was the one.

Which got me to thinking about modern thoroughbred racing and how we don't have the secretariat's and the seattle slews and the other great horses of yesteryear anymore. Just like we don't have the babe ruth's who have statistics so far ahead of the next guy its ridiculous. We keep searching for the next Secretariat and whenever a 3 year old wins a race by open lengths we think, "this might be the one"

Lets think about Barbaro's 6 length Derby win and put it into context. You know the saying, "you are never as good as you look when you win and never as bad as you look when you lose" Barbaro's Derby said, "dominance". But, if we did a little close and wipe the enamoration off our faces, we can ask this particular question. If Barbaro was in fact so much better than the 2nd best 3 year old, why did he not win ALL his lifetime starts by 6 lengths or more? After all, the competition he faced in the Derby was better than the competition he faced in Florida...how come he was under an all out drive to beat average 3 year olds? If he was that dominant, why didn't he win ALL his races by a distance?

The answer is that he wasn't that dominant. He was just one of the better 3 year olds and got the perfect race setup in Ky and exploited it.

Today's thoroughbred racing is a totally different game than it was 30 years ago when Secretariat came romping home at Belmont by a 31 shot.

Horses are more fragile. But, the most important thing as to why we may never see another 'great' horse again is this. The 2nd thru 10th best 3 year olds are SO good, that its hard for the #1 horse to be 6 lengths better than the rest on a consistent basis. What would have to happen in the breeding industry for one horse to just genetically be superior to everyone else? How can that actually happen? The top echelon is so fast and so good, its hard to think that we can ever see dominance again. If the 2nd and 3rd best 3 year olds are consistently running -1's and -2's on the tgraphs, that would mean a dominant 3 year old would have to always run -4 and -5 to beat these horses by open lengths every time. No one runs that fast all the time, even the super great older horses have trouble doing that.

Its sort of the same thing in pro sports. Take a look at a player like David Eckstein for the St Louis Cardinals. He's a really good player in today's game. His on base pct is great, he's a phenominal contact hitter, good catalyst, etc. Is he a great player, a hall of famer, one of the best of all time? Probably not....we don't even view him as a top player, he's just there doing his thing, getting on base and making things happen.

If David Eckstein was put in a time machine and came out as himself in 1930, he'd be considered one of the best baseball players in history. Do you think the pitchers of the 1930's would get this guy out? Never, he'd be on base 2 times a game facing pitchers who had jobs in the offseason, who didn't know the first thing about nutrition and exercise. Relief pitchers were non existant back then, the starter usually went 9 innings throwing the same flat pitches late in the game. If Eckstein is getting hits off top relief pitchers in the 8th inning throwing nasty breaking stuff in todays game, what would he do back in the day?

Same with racing. The Secretariat's of the world were great, but the farther you get back in racing, the less competition there was. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th tier thoroughbreds were SO bad that the top horses in those generations were unbeatable. They could race 30 times a year because they were never extended. Jocks weren't nearly as strong or skilled, so the horse just had to canter around there hardly breaking a sweat and he was ready a few days later to do it all again. Don't want to get into a drug discussion, but thats a factor too.

The riders of today are SO powerful, they make these horses run so fast and hit them so hard and bull them thru the wire, that it takes a tremendous toll on a horse. Back in the day, the jocks were much kinder to horses, they had less strength. Look at the style of rider in the 50's.....these guys 'form' was nothing like it is today. Everything is better today, nutrition, drugs, jocks are much stronger, etc. These horses are asked to the bottom of the well in every race thats why its SO hard to come back and do it again.

For some reason we are BEGGING for greatness. For some reason we want to see a horse come along like the old days and win race after race after race by 10, 15 20 lengths. Its not going to happen. You just aren't going to see Man O War 100 length wins ever again. This is the new age of racing. I think if we didn't think that we can have a superhorse, we won't be so upset when one we THINK is super doesn't pan out to be that way.

Look at last year. Have you EVER seen a better looking specimen than Bellamy Road? He won the Wood by 500 lengths and visually looked like the 2nd coming. 3 weeks later he lost to someone called Giacomo who was just an average, plodding horse from the west coast who never did anything of note before the Derby. If Bellamy Road can't go on to greatness, who can? Bellamy Rd is the best looking horse ever. He's a huge, incredibly long striding freight train of a horse who can just chew up ground effortlessly and make it look easy. Then, 3 weeks later, he's mortal again. If a horse built like Bellamy Road falls apart under duress, how can horses who DONT look as good as him withstand the grinds of modern racing?

Until we see a great horse, you have to have the attitude that all these horses are interchangable. They take turns beating one another.

The perception is that one day we'll get another Secretariat. The reality is that until that happens, you have to bet these horseraces like its just not going to happen again.