Please Explain..

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Unlike every other sport on the planet, why is it in horse racing all its recent champions or greats are always considered inferior to their predecessors?

In Tennis Federer is widely acknowledged as the greatest tennis player ever or on his way to being...

Tiger Woods is widely acknowledged as the greatest ever golfer or on his way to being...

Schumacher is widely acknowledged as being one of if not the greatest driver ever...

Hicham El Guerrouj is widely acknowledged as the greatest ever miler...

Ian Thorpe and Michael Phelps are greats of the swimming pool...

So on and so on and all of these stars have being around really from 1995 onwards.

I completely understand the respect given to Arkle and co...but what was Arkle's rating...212 or something? In the current climate of ratings there is absolutely no chance in hell of a chaser ever achieving that mark.

Arkle has the "protection" of achieving his massive ratings in handicaps...but another recent great Istabraq is dismissed by the vast majority when compared with previous greats like Monksfield, Sea Pigeon,Bula, Night Nurse etc. Where is Moscow Flyer rated in comparison to some of the great two milers?

How is it that horse racing athletes (horses) seem to be the only athletes in sport that are not surpassing previous achievements?I would genuinely love to know the answer.
 
I quite agree.

But in racing we must defer to the elders who talk as sages. Yet all they have is ratings and misty eyes.

There is no answer, except this ;

We cant decide if Ramonti is better than Excellent Art ( thats 'we' not me) so how the hell can they state with certainty that Arkle is better than See More Business ?!

So for all the old duffers out there


Desert Orchid would have beaten Arkle.

Make A Stand would have beaten Istabraq

Warning would have beaten Brigadier Gerard

bog off.
 
We cant decide if Ramonti is better than Excellent Art ( thats 'we' not me) so how the hell can they state with certainty that Arkle is better than See More Business ?!
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Its not even that Arkle would be better than Kauto Star......he would be in a completely different parish.

I take your point about Ramonti and Excellent Art...but in that case (as an example) there is a matter of a couple of pounds difference either way...I can live with that. However ss things stand there will not only never be a chaser rated better than Arkle....but there will never be a chaser within 10 lenghts of Arkle...EVER! That just cannot be right.

Its not just Arkle, but I working from memory but I remember reading that there were a number of 2 mile chasers rated much better than Moscow Flyer. Moscow Flyer got all the plaudits (rightly so) and beat what were widely acknowledged as a great bunch of two milers...but still he could be matched up positively with the previous great two milers.
 
That's because handicapping is all relative; there's no absolute standard (unlike rating against time, for example, which will tell us beyond all doubt that Asafa Powell is the fastest man in history).
 
there's no absolute standard
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What makes Federer the best tennis player...Woods the best golfer? They are widely percieved as being so.

But how many jumps fans would say Istabraq was better than Night Nurse or Kauto Star better than Mill House or God forbid Arkle. While accepting there is no "standard" Arkle's rating has to mean something or otherwise whats the point?
 
The thoroughbred has been specifically bred for athletic excellence for many generations, and pretty well their entire population has had access to specialist training regimes, something you couldn't say about the great majority of humans.

This has meant that the thoroughbred has probably got fairly near to what can physically be achieved with the breed. Over the last hundred years only ability at up to about a mile has improved, in my opinion. The best sprinters of today are certainly faster than when I first started following the sport nearly 50 years ago, despite the annual bleatings that the current crop of sprinters is no good. Only Abernant and The Tetrarch from bygone days would be competitive at the highest level today. But at longer distances it's far from clear that much, if any, improvement is being made.

As far as human sportsmen are concerned, it's only comparatively recently that vast chunks of humanity have had access to proper training methods in competitive sport. Tiger Woods would not have been able to carve out a career in golf even one generation ago, and athletes have only started to come of Africa in numbers over the last 25 years, with much more to come.

Regarding the names you list, some might argue that Fangio, Clark and Senna were better than Schumacher. Or, that Nicklaus was better than Woods. Or, that Laver was better than Federer. Was Bradman not the best batsman ever, and wasn't Ali the best boxer?
 
What makes Federer the best tennis player...Woods the best golfer? They are widely percieved as being so.
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Until Woods has beaten Nicklaus' number of major wins and Federer has beaten Sampras' number of Grand Slam wins I'm sure there will be plenty who will argue the point.
 
Arkle beat Mill House by ever increasing amounts whenever they met..after the initial meeting

Arkle was hammering MH 20 and 30 lengths...MH would be the greatest chaser of the 60's without Arkle being there I think many would agree...so in todays terms MH would have been a 175 to 185 horse to earn that mantle

that and the handicap performances make Arkle a 200+ rated horse

I think we could have a real champion...as we appear to have now...but even a real champion is not the total frealk of nature that Arkle was

when KS is beating the best horses at level weights by 30 lengths we may be there...as it is..he isn't doing that...but is it realistic to expect that level of performance?
 
Don't we have the times for all the top races through history?
Are they quicker now than then?
If not then the oldies were as good. shrug::
 
In defence of old farts everywhere (I get my bus pass next April) I'd like to say Kauto Star is the best I've ever seen.
What more does he have to do to get true recognition? I've laid him for the Gold Cup, but I wish I hadn't!
 
it's a neverending ratings conundrum

if a horse wins every race it runs in by 3 or 4 lengths against the best of it's generation...is it a champion?

or is a horse that wins just 30% of it's races..but wins one by 25 lengths against the best of it's generation a champion.

Best Mate was decried because "he never beat anything"...but he won 3 Gold Cups

is winning 3 Gold Cups the sign of a Champion?...or would winning one Gold Cup by a distance against the 2nd best chaser of that generation make a horse a champion

so many questions

best thing is just to enjoy them whilst they are here
 
We do Harry, and by and large they point to the same thing, today's horses are better/ faster than those of yesteryear. This is purely down to advances in science and training regimes etc and is no different to the human athelete, or for that matter motor sport, ski-ing or any sport that measures its perfection in the amount of time taken to cover a distance. It makes these historical match ups therefore perilous as you need to try and legislate for 'the times' in which they were acheived, making the whole thing relative and ultimately beyond satisfactory resolution.

I think there's a couple of points however that we've let escape here. Athletes can talk, horses can't. This might sound simple but pragmatically it means that someone consenting to give an interview and do a photo shoot is likely to hand pick their 'preferred journo' with the intention of securing a positive article. The journo mindful that it is sensible to cultivate any access to a leading sports person is going to recipricate and write something sympathetic. This in turn will help propogate a sense of greatness with every drip feed.

I also feel that various journo's or media types define themselves through the formative generation they grew up in, and after so long they hark back to it, and risk becoming marooned in some illusionary golden nirvana that never existed. The temptation when looking for easy copy, or accessible reference points is therefore to draw on the historically familiar, especially if doing otherwise risks upsetting a contemporary.

I've heard footballers and cricketers heralded thus and it is probably nonesense with a few exceptions. Cricket might have it's averages, but the nature of the game changes. If you listened to Fred Truman, you'd think Harold Larwood was the fastest bowler in history. You only need to see how far the wicket keeper stands back, to know that Malcom Marshall was quicker, although one would have thought that with modern technology, these sort of things could be resolved now. One of th emost startling examples I saw was the average heights and weights of the 1971 British Lions 'greatest team' and those of the 1997 tourists to South africa. The most recent generation were about 6 inches taller and 2 stone a man heavier. Had they ever played each other, I have little doubt that the 1997 vintage could have stuck 100 points on their '71 cohort.

Where i think racing is a little bit incidious is that people use an historical knowledge to point score, and to try and establish a kind of hierarchy of deference. With this in mind, it stands to reason that the old buffers at the top of the Christmas tree will choose to try and defend their position by harking back to the good old days and telling tales about horses who get faster with the blurring of memory, as nostalgia is a quite intoxicating substance (more so than alcohol, given that one is temporary and the other permament). Myth very easily becomes reality if people start to believe their own memories. Did Summers used to be hotter? No, but people think they did.

Persoanlly, (and I can think of one contributor to this site whose always raking up these kind of horse x versus horses y hypothetical match ups), I don't see the point in it. Last time I knew, I wasn't ever likely to make any money from knowing if kauto Star would beat Arkle. I can see the value in trying to establish a benchmark to a recent great (last 10 years) and trying to establish where a horse might sit alongside them etc if it gives you an insight as to the level they've achieved, but short of that, it remains academic and best consigned to the pointless pontificating of the beer table.
 
Originally posted by EC1@Dec 26 2007, 11:41 PM


that and the handicap performances make Arkle a 200+ rated horse
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I`ve always been a bit suspicious of those handicap performances. Is there not a chance that with far fewer horses in training in those days animals that Arkle beat or was touched off by giving them huge lumps of weight (Stalbridge Colonist and the like) who went on to be placed in Gold Cups were just not that good, maybe they were 150 rather than 165 say?
 
Originally posted by Gareth Flynn@Dec 26 2007, 11:22 PM
What makes Federer the best tennis player...Woods the best golfer? They are widely percieved as being so.
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Until Woods has beaten Nicklaus' number of major wins and Federer has beaten Sampras' number of Grand Slam wins I'm sure there will be plenty who will argue the point.
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Federer`s greatness isn`t all about the number of GS wins he has, it`s the way he`s been on top for so long and crucially that he is competitive on all surfaces. Sampras wouldn`t even be in an all-time top ten list because he was shite on clay.
 
"One of th emost startling examples I saw was the average heights and weights of the 1971 British Lions 'greatest team' and those of the 1997 tourists to South africa. The most recent generation were about 6 inches taller and 2 stone a man heavier. Had they ever played each other, I have little doubt that the 1997 vintage could have stuck 100 points on their '71 cohort."

If that is true, it is a sad condemnation of rugby.

I have to admit to being one of those old fogies who thinks Arkle will always be the best horse I've seen.

I feel it can only be judged on how much better a horse was than its contemporaries.

Arkle (not so convinced about Flyingbolt) was way in front of his, so much so that separate handicaps had to be introduced to fit him into races.

When this happens for Kauto Star, or one of his stablemates, I will start to think differently.

There was something about the style of Denman's performance in the Hennessy that reminded me of Arkle ( the result being beyond doubt some way out) and even though I haven't seen yesterday's performance by Kauto Star, it is reported as being very impressive.

Of course, holes could be picked in the King George performance, the surprising way that Exotic Dancer was ridden probably nullifies that horse's run, so we have Kauto beating Our Vic, a horse rated 163, by 11 lengths.

I see he has been given a RPR of 184+, over to you Mr. Handicapper.

As for Federer, his tennis is much more attractive to watch than Laver's, Borg's or Hoad's.

Woods is way in front of the opposition around today but would he have dominated in the same way if Nicklaus, Palmer and Player, or players of such talent, had been around to compete.

I don't know much about the comparative driving abilities of Schumacher, Prost, Moss, Fangio, as I think their abilities are so much camouflaged by the hardware they drove.

I think cricket is probably the sport most difficult to compare over the years because of the way the game has changed. The fielding is unrecognisable, the expected scoring rates are off the scale of the game that I started watching in the 50's. The wickets are covered and much more test cricket is played. The thought of a bowler taking 700+ test wickets would have been laughable in Fred's day.
 
“Regarding the names you list, some might argue that Fangio, Clark and Senna were better than Schumacher. Or, that Nicklaus was better than Woods. Or, that Laver was better than Federer. Was Bradman not the best batsman ever, and wasn't Ali the best boxer?”

True but would any of them rate Federer or Woods as far behind as our current champions would be rated? Our current Champions are not even in the same parish as those in the 60s and 70s. Have they really regressed so much?

I take your point about the breeding side of the thoroughbred but again two points…if the breeding has been mastered why again are the current champions so far behind the previous ones? I would understand if there was a “ceiling” that others were not surpassing but they at any rate they seem to be regressing.

Whats more surely the human input has improved….training of the horse, nutrition, veterinary care plus the jumps are better built more enticing and better designed for a horse to jump.

If Arkle was a one off freak of a horse that was so far ahead of the rest I could possibly accept maybe that’s just it there is no reason. But because there are so many other chasers and hurdlers around that era rated so far ahead of anything since it makes me wonder.
 
Coming back to your original question, Gal, I really think its because horses cannot speak for themselfs, nor can they read a paper and complain about whats been said about them. As such they have only humans to "defend" them and so many people marvel in their role as "master of pounds and distances" (incl. here in the Forum, I might add). I did think in the same vain recently when reading a letter in the RP denying that Dylan Thomas is a "great" horse, but "only" a "very good" horse. How very petty is that?

Apart from that as always Venusian is pretty accurate. I too believe the thoroughbred has reached a certain (biological) limit and times show that even despite much better keeping, training regimes, feeding etc. the horse is neither getting faster nor sounder.
 
But the main improvements in training really has only come in the last 20 years or so…were has this been reflected in the rating of our Champions.

Again I understand that they have been bred for this and have reached the ceiling but even allowing for that why were the massively rated horses happened to be based in the 60s 70s….its not even a case of our current horses been rated the same….they are not within a stones throw of them or ever look likely to be.
 
I think there has to be a ceiling, Gal.

Whether Arkle's performances were the ceiling, time will tell, but I don't think I will be around to witness the horse that goes through that ceiling.
 
Originally posted by Galileo@Dec 26 2007, 10:43 PM
Unlike every other sport on the planet, why is it in horse racing all its recent champions or greats are always considered inferior to their predecessors?
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On the other hand, in the mid-late 1960s, they weren't saying anything of the sort. They were still going on about Golden Miller but then along came Flyingbolt, Arkle and Mill House.

In Flat racing, Sea Bird eclipsed all his predecessors, with only Mill Reef and Brigadier Gerard getting close subsequently, and we're now arguing about which horse has got closest to them in recent seasons.

Desert Orchid is the best since Arkle, and it is a tribute to his brilliance that even the superb form of Kauto Star yesterday (I rate him value for 15 lengths, which equates to 10lbs) falls about 6lbs short of Dessie's best, which was still 20lbs behind Arkle, but 3lbs better than Best Mate's peak.
 
Originally posted by Bar the Bull@Dec 27 2007, 09:26 AM
I think Euro's point is a salient one. Are we really sure that the horses beaten by Arkle in handicaps were as good as their rating?
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In the 20-odd years that the official ratings have been made public, it is probably fair to say that the vast majority of horses are better than their official marks.

In the 1960s we really only had Timeform operating on the 'numerical expression of ability' approach.

However, it is clear from numerous collateral form lines that Arkle was vastly superior to everything else.
 
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