Phil Smith - Arkle

Euronymous said:
So you're basically saying that because Mill House won a Whitbread after this tonking that he wasn't finished and ran to a decent level. Isn't that like saying Denman ran to maybe 165/70 when Madison Du Berlais thrashed him at Kempton in February?
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I don't see any evidence/excuses made for MH on any of the defeats by Arkle..whereas many people felt Denman was a sick horse last season..obviously MH wasn't running his best in some of those races but he was no back number during Arkle's reign

you seem to be suggesting that MH was a really top notch horse...then suddenly a 140/150 horse whilst Arkle was beating him..then he is suddenly a top horse again in 1967...quite a coincidence he wasn't much cop whilst Arkle was around for the 3 years do you not think?

when MH was at his peak he would have been a 180/185 horse..maybe more he was so well thought of...I haven't used his best rating to measure Arkle in that example

Stalbridge Colonist would have been a very good horse when he beat Arkle..he was nearly a GC winner the same season..you could guess he was a 160/165 horse when he won the Henessey..again thats being conservative...making Arkle a 200 horse..and then allowing for whether he was caugtht out by Mellor in that race..or not.

Does anyone really think that Denman ran his best races last season by the way?
 
Before he met Arkle, Mill House was believed to have been the best chaser in history and hailed from a stable that was steeped in NH lore, that knew a good horse when they came across one.
 
EC1 said:
Stalbridge Colonist would have been a very good horse when he beat Arkle..he was nearly a GC winner the same season..you could guess he was a 160/165 horse when he won the Henessey..again thats being conservative...making Arkle a 200 horse..and then allowing for whether he was caugtht out by Mellor in that race..or not.
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What evidence is there that Stalbridge Colonist was a really good horse? It seems to me with the reduced horse population in those days that the mid 150s placed Gold Cup horse (a la Hedgehunter/Harbour Pilot/Sir Rembrant) would have been a far more common occurence.

Chances are that Arkle was a mid 190s horse and Mill House ran to a below par mark of 160 that day. And Stalbridge Colonist and What a Myth ran in really poor Gold Cup's. They were more Cool Ground than Master Oats lets say.
 
EC1 said:
I don't see any evidence/excuses made for MH on any of the defeats by Arkle..whereas many people felt Denman was a sick horse last season..obviously MH wasn't running his best in some of those races but he was no back number during Arkle's reign
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Would a dodgy ticker like Denman's have been picked up forty years ago?
 
Euronymous said:
What evidence is there that Stalbridge Colonist was a really good horse? It seems to me with the reduced horse population in those days that the mid 150s placed Gold Cup horse (a la Hedgehunter/Harbour Pilot/Sir Rembrant) would have been a far more common occurence.
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Hedgehunter was a 172 horse at his best.

My highest rating for Harbour Pilot was 167.

Sir Rembrandt 168.

Arguably, therefore, you could add 18+ to whatever you think Arkle might have been...
 
Euronymous said:
What evidence is there that Stalbridge Colonist was a really good horse? It seems to me with the reduced horse population in those days that the mid 150s placed Gold Cup horse (a la Hedgehunter/Harbour Pilot/Sir Rembrant) would have been a far more common occurence.

Chances are that Arkle was a mid 190s horse and Mill House ran to a below par mark of 160 that day. And Stalbridge Colonist and What a Myth ran in really poor Gold Cup's. They were more Cool Ground than Master Oats lets say.
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thats a lot of negative outcomes to support you argument though isn't it?

we could do the same with KS.s form quite a lot easier..in fact you could negatively handicap every horse to be 20lb's below their real ability quite easily in just the same way

style of victory hasn't even been taken into account either in all this..Arkle won most of his races like Nijinsky..without any real pressure applied

one advantage of using handicaps to measure a horse is that horses are usually pushed to their limits in those races..ie..no easy time ...like in conditions races where a horse win by 30 lengths..and then its..well how do we know others ran to their best...Arkle won most of his handicaps easily unless he met well handicapped future good horses..and he still beat most of them

I would check out Stalbridge Colonists series of wins before he beat Arkle..won 9 on bounce Nov65/April66 ... before finishing 2nd in France in the summer to Cacao French GN winner.

Again..we could just say all the horses in the 60's were only 140/150 horses and now they are all now so much better..just to suit a view...but in reality..comparitively ..they were the best we had. If we had fed all the 60's horses on todays feed and trained them the same as they are now..they would all be the best we have today as well..Arkle beat all of them..and hammered regularly the Denman of his day...just one of those 20+ lb superiority wins today by KS over Denman would be getting KS serious greatest of all time ravings
 
Desert Orchid said:
Hedgehunter was a 172 horse at his best.

My highest rating for Harbour Pilot was 167.

Sir Rembrandt 168.

Arguably, therefore, you could add 18+ to whatever you think Arkle might have been...
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think Euronymous means they would all have been 150 horses if they got placed in the GC at that time...because there wasn't as many horses...i don't really buy that argument to be fair

The only horses that bothered Arkle [when receiving 35+lbs] ended up being pretty good horses ..a coincidence?
 
No. ORs are pretty conservative when applied to handicappers and Hedghunter's OR was 166. He was off 158 in the National to tempt him to run. I actually had him on 174 for his second place to War Of Attrition (176) in the Gold Cup. WOA's OR after that was 171 so 166 for Hedgehunter, btn a diminishing 2½ lengths is genuinely conservative.

If we start saying the likes of Hedgehunter was less than 158, then Kauto Star needs to come down a stone as well.
 
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Timeform had Red Rum on 158 I think. And their list of jumping greats starts at 175 and surely no one would put War of Attrition anywhere near such a list.

On the flat Derby winners range from 125-140. So for the Gold Cup we should be looking at between 165-190. WOA surely belongs at the very lowest rung on that ladder.
 
I am the last person to get invloved in an arguement about ratings but all I can say is that if Arkle had the same training regime and opportunities as Kauto Star what difference would it make.
 
LUKE said:
I am the last person to get invloved in an arguement about ratings but all I can say is that if Arkle had the same training regime and opportunities as Kauto Star what difference would it make.
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My very point is he didn't yet we are still to believe he has hit such heights compared to every other horse in history...

It also brings to point the level of fitness in horses back then. It is widely acknowledged that training techniques have upped a gear in the last 10-15 years let alone back to Arkles time. How many of the horses were fully fit or primmed for the day - no wonder the winning distances could be so great if horses were not getting home. There are so many reasons scientifically speaking alone that I find it amazing that the numbers people (of all people) do not question his ratings.
 
Euronymous said:
Timeform had Red Rum on 158 I think. And their list of jumping greats starts at 175 and surely no one would put War of Attrition anywhere near such a list.

On the flat Derby winners range from 125-140. So for the Gold Cup we should be looking at between 165-190. WOA surely belongs at the very lowest rung on that ladder.
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I don't know about Red Rum's Timeform rating but I'd be surprised if it was as low as 158. If that were the case, assuming it was based on his best ever performances - which came at Aintree under 12-0 - then his OR would equate to about 146-148. I can't imagine the top weight in a Grand National off such a low handicap mark.

In 1974 Rummy gave the Gold Cup winner L'Escargot a pound and an easy seven lengths beating. It's hard to imagine L'Escargot being any less than 170.

Also, when he was second to L'Escargot, he was giving the latter 11lbs. L'Escargot was reputedly on the downgrade but he wasn't. He'd been put away for the National, having failed to beat Red Rum in 1974.

As for the Derby, not many winners actually achieve 125 at that stage of their career and anything around 129/130 is exceptional. Oath was 118 on my figures and New Approach 129. (High Chaparral was something like 133.)

Gold Cup winners tend to range from 168-178. Only the very good ones get higher. That makes War Of Attrition an average Gold Cup winner.
 
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LUKE said:
I am the last person to get invloved in an arguement about ratings but all I can say is that if Arkle had the same training regime and opportunities as Kauto Star what difference would it make.
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basically the argument against Arkle is the same as comparing footballers of the 60's with footballers now..they are quicker now..better diet..training regimes etc

the point is that given todays feed and fitness expectation..all the horses of Arkles generation would have been the same as they are now...you can only compare a horse or footballer against its contemparies...time travelling horses isn't a valid way of comparing horses

another argument is that there wasn't as many horses then..another flawed argument..the 80/20 rule would still mean that the top 10 horses then would be very similar to the top 10 horses now..bar maybe 1 or two less..basically it was just as hard then as it is now to beat a horse like Denman 20 giving 16..which MH was..if not better

the simple matter is that anyone below the age of 40 just isn't really going to buy that a horse could be that much better than waht is passing by their eyes now.

in 30 years time I can imagine people saying..were Denman and KS that much better than all the other horses??..and they were in the same stable...seems a bit of a coincidence
 
EC1 said:
another argument is that there wasn't as many horses then..another flawed argument..the 80/20 rule would still mean that the top 10 horses then would be very similar to the top 10 horses now..bar maybe 1 or two less
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I can't have that at all. Martin Pipe's emergence in the 80s showed up how far behind the times a lot of jumps trainers were then, imagine the sort of training regimens they had twenty years before his arrival. I'll warrant if you went back to the 60s and watched all the good races you'd have some right old nags lucking out into places.

EC1 said:
in 30 years time I can imagine people saying..were Denman and KS that much better than all the other horses??..and they were in the same stable...seems a bit of a coincidence
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But the differential in ratings between Kauto Star and the rest - Best Mate, Moscow, Azertyuiop, See More Business etc etc isn't that great. Racing is far far more competitive now than it was then (just imagine last week's King George without any French bred's) and the chances are we had an exceptional 195ish animal in Arkle, a true legend who probably is still better than Kauto Star who routinely devastated 150ish beasts - who in such a narrow pool of talent were able to take Gold Cup's and what have you once Himself was gone from the scene.
 
Euronymous said:
Just looked it up, his Timeform Rating in 1977 was 156. Which was 5lbs more than Davy Lad got for winning the Gold Cup.
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But he'd come down about 10lbs that season for running poorly.

I can agree that Davy Lad wasn't a great Gold Cup winner. (However, he was the final leg of a winning 3x I had that day - I included him because I felt he was the only one that would act in the very heavy ground. Meladon won the Triumph Hurdle for leg 1 and I can't remember the other winner!)

However, the weird thing is, if you're quoting low ratings for the best horses just 10 years after Arkle's era, it suggests Timeform's ratings were in fact very conservative. Maybe Arkle was a 220+ beast after all...
 
well we have some good points on both sides here..none of us are going to really change our views I reckon though :D

i still think that MH was the one horse that showed us how good Arkle was..we know that MH was lauded as the best horse seen for years..maybe ever..obviously afterwards that looks unlikely..but he must have been a 180 horse..minumum...and A beat him by big distances and in an easy manner..again..how would rate KS if he beat D as easily..we would be giving KS a similar rating to A.

the other horses that A beat can be open to question as with points Euronymous has made..even then its quite a coincidence that these horses that got near Arkle turned out to be very good horses

come March..if KS beats D in a canter by 20 len+ with the rest well beat he will be very close to A.

either way ..KS is far and away the best chaser in the last 40 years imo
 
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Don't know about 'far and away', though.

I think I had Dessie on 192 or something like that. I think Denman is capable of hitting that kind of mark.
 
Dessie was exceptional obviously..what did you rate him at Cheltenham only DO?

The only neg about Dessie was that he definately preferred a flat track like Kempton..whereas KS acts anywhere..but could be argued he too is well suited to Kempton as well..but his Cheltenham form looks better than Dessies

a bit of generalising there like:D
 
Dessie had a weakness in his back. Running left-handed aggravated the weakness, hence he was seldom at his very best. He got a lot of physio on it before he won the Gold Cup but he didn't have to be anywhere near form to beat Yahoo (which I'd backed at 100/1:mad:). He probably only needed to hit about 164 that day.
 
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