Sea The Stars - Retirement Announced

Bar the Bull said:
His profiles are hilarious. I love the way he says that a horse has a record of 113221131 in races between December and March on left handed undulating tracks with no more than 30 days between runs when ridden by a right-handed jockey with no more than three syllables in his name.
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So true, Bar.
 
"Originally Posted by Bar the Bull
His profiles are hilarious. I love the way he says that a horse has a record of 113221131 in races between December and March on left handed undulating tracks with no more than 30 days between runs when ridden by a right-handed jockey with no more than three syllables in his name."

Naaah!...........you're mixing him up with Mounty, Bar.;):o:)
 
Venusian said:
Think Fusaichi Pegasus
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I remember doing the maths on FP after Coolmore bought him and seeing his fee and the numbers he covered and reckoned that before one of his progeny had even raced they had cover 80-90% of their investment. One of my friends stands Kalanisi and they have a 5 year time horizon with him as a national hunt stallion which means that his pure national hunt stock needs to be winning races as four year olds to be pushing him on with breeders.
 
Headstrong said:
Rip may have 'pushed him' in the sense he broke the record at Sandown but no-one who watched the race can honestly claim that STS was 'all out''
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If by "he never really had to exert himself" you meant "he was never all out", you should have said so in the first place.
 
I don't think the fact that Sts has no duplications in his own pedigree close up will be an issue as regards people looking for an affinity with a bloodline. He has top sires close up in Cape Cross,Miswaki Green Desert, Mr prospector and Ahonoora. He also has Sire producing mares in Urban Sea,Balidaress and Allegretta. Will he stamp his stock with an outcross pedigree ? ,probably not . Will he succeed as a stallion ? If the mares he is going to get simply reproduce themselves it will be a good few years before anyone notices ! Odds are against all stallions succeeding but I reckon his progeny will need time anyway.

One chap who did alright for himself :o with no duplication in his first five generations and (this is relevant to another thread) was retired after winning his first three runs ($32k winnings) with bad knees and was kinda ugly looking was 'Danzig'.

I too agree that ratings people in General do not fully appreciate this horse. He was never really challenged and I couldn't really see anything ever beating him. That's what 'me waters' told me the first time I saw him at Leop and that opinion has not changed. Speed ratings are valid for most horses but when you get one Like Sts who is too laid back to exert himself more than he deems fit to beat the other horse, they are redundant.

For most of us retiring him would be a no brainer for financial reasons but for the Tsui's where $ are not an issue I must agree with a previous poster that unless they are starting their own breeding operation (which they have denied) then why not race at 4 ?
 
I too agree that ratings people in General do not fully appreciate this horse. He was never really challenged and I couldn't really see anything ever beating him. That's what 'me waters' told me the first time I saw him at Leop and that opinion has not changed. Speed ratings are valid for most horses but when you get one Like Sts who is too laid back to exert himself more than he deems fit to beat the other horse, they are redundant.
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I could understand this point for a horse like Rock of Gibraltar, another colt who looked after himself through an incredible sequence of victories. But Sea The Stars needs no such defence. His ratings put him in a very tiny percentage at the top of the tree. Calling them redundant actually serves to diminish him - it's the combination of his level of performance and his level of achievement that mark him out as one of the very greatest.
 
Sheikh said:
I too agree that ratings people in General do not fully appreciate this horse.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it the ratings people on here who were saying that Sea The Stars was one of the best ever after the Eclipse when the majority were still arguing that all he'd beat was Rip Van Winkle.
 
Gareth Flynn said:
I could understand this point for a horse like Rock of Gibraltar, another colt who looked after himself through an incredible sequence of victories. But Sea The Stars needs no such defence. His ratings put him in a very tiny percentage at the top of the tree. Calling them redundant actually serves to diminish him - it's the combination of his level of performance and his level of achievement that mark him out as one of the very greatest.
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I suppose my problem is I can't believe there was ever one better than him and the ratings don't reflect that.:(
 
Venusian said:
Simon, I mean he has no duplications in the first 5 generations of his pedigree.

When researching my post, I was trying to think of a stallion with an outcross pedigree who had been a real success, and all I could come up with was Bold Ruler, and then I discovered that he's 5X5 Sundridge.
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There aren’t many (there should be more, for the benefit of the breed). Selkirk is of course a highly successful exception free of duplication (and also free of Northern Dancer). Usually one of the first ports of call as an outcross stallion.
 
Colin Phillips said:
LET'S NOT GO OVERBOARD WITH SEA THE STARS

I confess that I am having a bad reaction to all the praise that's been heaped on SEA THE STARS (43) after his win in the Arc de Triomphe. Yes it was a smart performance on the clock. But every year around the world we see at least half a dozen to match it on my speed ratings. And I don't think the adulation the horse is getting for his admittedly brilliant feat of winning six Group 1's in a row is good for the sport.

It seems to me that that the attention Sea The Stars is receiving promotes what I see as two very bad ideas. The first is that a horse can establish itself as a Champion in a single season. The second is that an unbeaten string of victories is the true mark of a great horse.

The connections of top horses need to be encouraged to risk defeat for their charges without the prospect of torpedoing their stud value. If we reserve our highest praise for those that are fortunate enough to establish a long unbeaten streak we're doing a disservice to the sport. We're forcing many of the best horses to be retired early for fear of breaking their winning sequence and losing millions in stud value.

I have little doubt that Sea The Stars would have been beaten in the Irish Derby or the King George if he'd run in either race. The going was too slow for him at the Curragh and the Ascot race would have come too soon after a big effort that left him tired in the Eclipse. By avoiding those races Sea The Stars has managed to win eight in a row and be widely recognised as an all time great. Perhaps that's justified. But plenty of other horses as good or better than him on my ratings have run in unsuitable races and thereby sacrificed their chance of setting up a big winning sequence. And they've never been given the recognition they deserved.

I'm not a fan of comparing horses from different periods. But as far as I'm concerned the fastest horse we've seen in the last ten years was Falbrav. He clocked a series of incredible times at every distance from a mile to twelve furlongs in seven different countries across four seasons. But because he failed to establish a big winning streak he never gained the recognition that Sea The Stars has in the space of a few months. The very fact that Falbrav was such a globetrotter also meant he failed to generate the intense local press coverage that Sea The Stars has thanks to racing solely in Europe.

Don't get me wrong here. When he won the Eclipse Sea The Stars earned the biggest speed rating I've given a three year old in around a decade. But he's not come within two lengths per mile of that rating in any other race. So I'd like to see him do it again before being sure that the big number wasn't due to some error on my part.

However it looks like I won't get the chance. Towards the end of the Arc Sea The Stars was visibly tiring. You can see it from his sectional times of 5.5, 5.6 then 6.2 seconds for the last three 100 metre sections. He wasn't as tired as he was at the end of the Eclipse but trainer John Oxx did say he was tired the next day. Add to this what jockey Mick Kinane has said about Sea The Stars having gone in his coat and it hardly looks likely that we'll be seeing Sea The Stars again. He's surely going straight to stud.

If I had my way no stallion would be eligible for stud duty unless it had won a Group 1 race at four years of age or more. The present crazy system that we have allows hype to replace sustained racecourse performance and prevents horse-racing from having the long-established stars which draw fans to every other sport.
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The good thing about Mordin is that his contrarian stance occasionally throws up illuminating aspects that can be missed. The bad thing (as with the case in point) is that this kind of stance usually denigrates into an act of will to ‘prove’ that black is white – e.g. that weight doesn’t matter in handicaps (in fairness I believe he has since retracted this stance, when Newton’s laws of gravity were explained to him).
 
Sheikh said:
I suppose my problem is I can't believe there was ever one better than him [Rock of Gibraltar] and the ratings don't reflect that.:(
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I can't believe people were so taken by Rock Of Gibraltar. Yes, I admired his guts and he seemed the type who refused to be beaten, but he didn't have much to beat and I've always felt if he came up against a superstar he'd have left the track bottomed.
 
It worked for him because he wasn't up against anything great. I suspect he'd have broken himself trying to keep tabs on a superstar.
 
Desert Orchid said:
It worked for him because he wasn't up against anything great.
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Ahem... Hawk Wing is Ballydoyle's top-rated animal (and I believe even more highly rated by yourself). However I take (and agree) with your point (STS is a different kettle of fish to ROG). Hawk Wing should have beaten Rock in the Guineas.
 
Originally Posted by Sheikh
I suppose my problem is I can't believe there was ever one better than him [Rock of Gibraltar] and the ratings don't reflect that.:(

I can't believe people were so taken by Rock Of Gibraltar. Yes, I admired his guts and he seemed the type who refused to be beaten, but he didn't have much to beat and I've always felt if he came up against a superstar he'd have left the track bottomed.
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How did rock of the Gib get in there, imposter.
 
In ratings terms ROG did not beat Hawk Wing in the Guineas. They each won their division with Hawk Wing recieving the higher mark.
 
In ratings terms ROG did not beat Hawk Wing in the Guineas. They each won their division with Hawk Wing recieving the higher mark.
 
ROG had the achievements, but not the big rating. Hawk Wing ended up with the big rating, but not the achievements. Sea The Stars has both. :cool:
 
Sea The Stars is a very good horse. Rip Van Winkle, Fame and Glory and Mastercraftman are also good horses, but they're not as good as Sea The Stars.
 
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