Radio 5s three bets horses of all time

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clivex

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Entertaining debate last night with Walter Swinburn, Cornelius whatsisname and Brough Scott (who showed why i miss him on c4 still)

The idea was to get down to the "best flat horse of all time" They didnt quite do that except for Scott more or less naming Secretariat

But last three (given that it was really best european horse of all time) were, in no order

Frankel
Brigadier Gerard
Dancing Brave

Mill Reef was close.

Now all the anoraks will no doubt start screaming about ratings and sectionals and go knows what, but reasons given seemed sound to me, although i didnt agree with all the criteria used
 
I think they meant the top three English horses, not the top European horses.

Sea Bird would have to be in there, and I'm not even sure Dancing Brave, great horse though he was, would make an English top three.
 
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Sea Bird would be top, The Brigadier second ( I had huge respect for his breeders John & Jean Hislop,they really deserved a horse like that ) and Frankel third ,
 
No. As i said, it was clearly european horses. Why would i say otherwise? At least Sea Bird and Ribot were discussed at length as were nijinsky and STS.

I wouldn't have thought many english top threes wouldn't have DB in it myself, especially if you want to judge by quality of field beaten in a top race. His Arc tops just about anything
 
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Why would i say otherwise?
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It's hard to understand how Sea Bird could be discussed and then left out of a European list. Here are Timeform's greatest:

145 Sea Bird II 144 Brigadier Gerard, Tudor Minstrel 143 Frankel 142 Abernant, Ribot, Windy City 141 Mill Reef 140 Dancing Brave, Dubai Millennium, Sea The Stars, Shergar, Vaguely Noble
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I think Frankel may have moved up a notch since this was posted.
 
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I knew this would get away from personal opinions into the boring world of other peoples ratings.Theres barely anything between those ratings anyway so its not hard to believe how one could not quite make the top three when about 10 are so close

The panel had a preference for speed it must be said and their opinion was based around the 10f mark
 
I think I would agree with the four horses mentioned, although not necessarily in the order they have been typed. Mill Reef might replace Dancing Brave in my own personal top three.
 
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the boring world of other peoples ratings
Erm, isn't that exactly what this topic is about?
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No

The objective wa snot to pick the top three from offical ratings. The programme would have lasted 10 seconds if so

the objective was to pick three english horses and stuff the rest
 
Ted. I must admit I was not into racing at that time (bit young :) ) but to have seen Mill reef (i loved the descriptions of him last night) and the Brigadier must have been quite extraordinary. Along with Nijinsky, that must really have been the true golden spell in flat racing
 
Clive is right to an extent.

Hawk Wing put up a top-notch performance.
Rock of Gibraltar didn't.

I think the Rock was a superior racehorse, although HW was capable of a better performance.

I realise that Sea Bird was a top horse, but could it be argued that he failed to show the sustained brilliance of say Frankel, Brigadier Gerard or Mill Reef? Not saying he should be excluded from the top 3, but maybe it is a reason to do so.

That said, I don't like seeing Dancing Brave in that exalted company. His brilliant performances didn't cut the mustard (why he is not in the top 5 Timeform all-time list) and he didn't do it often enough.
 
Ted - 4 notches - I think he's at 147 on the timeform scale.

Sea Brid to me is very similar to Frankel in that he was utterly dominat over 12f but didn;t do it over 3 seasons and Frankel's hit a better rating on way more occasions so is the superior horse by my reckoning.
 
I think the Timeform top three of Frankel, Sea Bird and the Brigadier looks hard to knock.
 
In truth im open minded about it, but consistency is definitely high up list of criteria. A fair point about DB (and maybe the excuses for the derby were overplayed) perhaps.

They also emphasised horses that ran a good few times and took on challenges (and maybe the Brigadier is peerless here) rather than packed off to stud asap. Dominating one set of peers is not enough really. And quite right too
 
Brigadier Gerard has always been my favourite flat racehorse and as much as I admire Frankel, I don't think he's achieved anything better than Brigadier Gerard achieved.
Yes Frankel's 2000gns win was extraordinary but he beat trees, he didn't beat Mill Reef and My Swallow.
One race I love looking at on Youtube is Mill Reef winning the Gymcrack stakes, the runner up didn't turn out to be too bad but he finished in another parish. I challenged a load of racing fans on Facebook to show me the race where Frankel was more impressive, and I'm still waiting for a reply..

Aragorn, you are correct, I was looking at the number after Frankel's name.

Anyway, three posts on here in one day, I might get a nosebleed, so I'm off.
 
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I reckon BG is the only one of those to have won top races at 2, 3 and 4, over 8f, 10f, 12f against all-aged opposition and even across the whole gamut of going. He had the ability, the achievement, the versatility.

The only black marks are that he didn't run in the Derby or Arc (in truth 12f stretched him but he still gutted it out in the King George) and he never raced abroad. That said, there weren't too many options besides France then - maybe the Washington International? And the best Irish and French horses took him on in Britain and were beaten (with the obvious exception of Roberto!).

That said, I'd take Frankel to beat him over any trip, so maybe he's the one regardless.
 
Secretariat ridiculously hard to leave out of the top 3 of all time IMHO - seems to get overlooked in a lot of these discussions.

Martin
 
I cant believe how little Sea the Stars gets mentioned in discussions of the greatest. He achieved what no horse had ever done before the Guineas/Derby/Arc. He bashed everything up that was thrown at him, smashed track records, over a variety of distances truly a great.
 
Sea The Stars was a top horse,

but no better than Dancing Brave, Montjeu, Dubai Millenium, Generous, El Gran Señor or some others in the last 30 years.

Frankel is a step ahead of this list
 
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