Best Fillies/Mares of All Time on the Flat

Enable, GFOAT?
I think so.
Oh So Sharp, Miesque, Salsabil, Zenyatta, Zarkava, another?

 

Goldikova doesn't make the list?

 

Timeform does not have one filly/mare in the top 17 of its Top Horses of All Time (ie above 138). I hope Enable breaks into that bracket now to be rewarded the accolade of best filly/mare of all time.



and more awards to come

There are lots of brilliant fillies/mares from the past. In addition to the above, Petite Étoile, Treve, Black Caviar, Pebbles, Bosra Sham, Dahlia, Ouija Board, Lochsong, Pawneese, Winx; so many greats for various reasons but I doubt any can have better claim to the title than Enable

 

Not to be (yet). Timeform leave her on 134 which puts her on a par with Grundy (137)

Which makes me think that for a filly/mare to get into the top 17 Timeform horses of all time (currently 139 or more), a filly/mare should only need to be rated 136. What does she have to beat by how much to be appreciated on a par with Generous and Reference Point (both on 139)? Petite Etoile attained a rating of 136 as a 3yo and 4yo and Habibti equalled that as a 3yo sprinter

 

Zarkava is the one for me, just staggering in the Arc and I’d be backing her all day long against Enable. My issue with Enable is the horses that she’s beaten aren’t as impressive as a list as those beaten by the greats.

That I think is a big problem with fillies and mares, they don’t race against the best colts very often and when they do, it is in receipt of weight. As such you get the “was she the best horse in the race” debate even when they win big races.

I’d also throw Ouija Board in and obviously the great Dawn Run. #dontforgetjumps

 

You will be adding SEA OF CLASS to the list this time next year!

 

Already thrown in Nass. Great to see you back

 

An alternative thread would be ‘Fillies and Mares with the loveliest names’. Now that would be super and a complete delight.

For me, in recent times, Fair Eva scores highly on both this count and the subject of this thread. She’d be my favourite filly at any rate. I still maintain that her romp in the ’16 ‘Princess Margaret’ was one of the best performances I’ve seen over the past few terms. If you would have said afterwards that she’d never win another race you would have been promptly sectioned, by those old boys in white coats, but that, due to one reason or another, was sadly the case. That day at Ascot though she was Supreme with a capital ‘S’.

Best fillies I've seen in my lifetime. Fair Eva apart, probobly, in my humble opinion, Lady Aurelia, Enable, Minding and Cape Verdi. The latter’s win in the 1,000 was outstanding and hindsight (rather like with Fair Eva) proves connections choice of races and fate undoubtedly conspired against her.

 

Enable is the best English filly for a long long time, the best in my time, and I put her along side Zarkava and Treve as the 3 best European fillies in recent history.

 

And shame on me for not mentioning the great Allez France

 

Maybe we should have a NH Best ……..

 

The Americans love Ruffian. Can't blame them either, she was some serious athlete. Unbeaten in 10 races where she took 2 track records and 8 race records, before smashing both sesamoid bones in her right foreleg while dueling in a match race with the Kentucky Derby winner Foolish Pleasure. Here she is winning the G1 Mother Goose Stakes.

 

Whenever I think of Quevega I always think she could have been a great but was never given the chance to become one by her connections. Never ran in a Grade 1 race at either the Cheltenham Festival or anywhere else in the Isle. I can understand them running in 1 or even 2 ‘Mares Hurdles’ but after this what was the bally point in continually turning up in this, ultimately substandard, heat?!? Surely the whole ethos of sport is to pit the best against the best and afterwards she should have been steered towards either the ‘Champion’ or ‘Stayers’. Had she won one of these she could have been right up there with the very best – Annie Power did just that and her ‘Champion’ success will live long in the memory and her name included on the honours board of hurdling’s top contest.

In a way she also represents everything that is now wrong with the Cheltenham Festival in that connections now have the, perfectly legitimate, option to steer exceptional animals away from the main prizes for mere ‘consolation’ events.

 

Dahlia must be mentioned if you mention Allez France

Sent to Kingman for her maiden mating, Fair Eva sadly has died before any produce.

 

Surely Sceptre must be included. Won 4 classics and was 4th in the Derby.

A different time, a different racing world when horses were set searching tests but she must have been great.

 

Already mentioned in Post #3 Bustino

 

As I sit here reading this thread, it is entitled “Best Fillies/Mares of All Time on the Flat”. I know not whether it has been renamed subsequent to the posts, but I do not believe that Quevega had any meritworthy record on the flat; neither did Dawn Run.

Also, there seems to be some difference of opinion about what constitutes “best”.

I would argue that surely the “best” must come from the modern era because the top females of antiquity, such as Sceptre, were not bred, trained or raced in a manner comparable to recent history. Simple Darwinian logic makes it imperative to conclude that continuous selective breeding has resulted in general improvement in the equine species. Surely nobody would argue, as a human example, that any 19th century athlete could have beaten Usain Bolt over 100 yards.

Sceptre is certainly worthy of mention here as surely no other contender for the title of “best” can have raced over such a wide variety of distances. Surely no modern horse would run in the Lincoln handicap before going to the Guineas meeting. Hard to imagine any modern filly racing at four if she won four of the five Classics (it would be a miracle if any contested them given that the first two and second two are now on consecutive days). Plus she did contest a lot of all-aged races and take on the boys, something that most modern fillies tend to avoid.

Taking Treve as an example, she only raced against her own sex and age group until the 2013 Prix Vermeille when she beat her elders. Obviously her stand out performance was the 2013 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. Beaten in her first three races as a four year old, she repeated her Arc victory. In 2015 she won her first three races but failed in her attempt at an Arc hat-trick. Other than her three Arc runs, she took on the boys three times and only won once.

 

I'm not sure that "Darwinian logic" plays too big a part in the differences in performance between champion of the past and those of today QM. Sceptre stood an impressive 16 hands and was an athletically built filly. There's every chance that the horse specimens of a hundred years ago, are pretty much the same as those we see today. I think the difference we struggle with, centres around the way we now train them and the increased knowledge we have in the sciences. Factor in the probability that race courses of today are better prepared, and we then open up a can of worms. Of course there will be a million holes in what I've just written, but I think it's probably a lot closer to the truth than to believe the we now have a much more advanced model due to Darwinism.

As a way of supporting your hypotheses, you mentioned the doubt that a 19th century sprinter could beat Usain Bolt. On this I'm inclined to agree. But not because we've evolved to any major degree, into a superior being. If I may, I'd like to bring the 20th century great, Jesse Owens into the debate to illustrate the point. Here's a man who doesn't get the respect he's due. Sure we see him as a wonder of his age, a man who stuck it up Hitler's belief in racial superiority beliefs, and in the process, stamped himself as a brilliant Olympian. But in our own blind faith we have in our own time and place in history, we all too often sell short the performances of past champions. Owens is one such athlete who's suffered by our need to pander to our own hubris.

Some will suggest the clip below on the difference between performances of athletes of today and those of yesterday, might provide a few solid answers to questions long asked. Hopefully the film will at least go a small way towards redressing some of the misconceptions we hold close to our chests. If it does so, then maybe we can stretch the concept to no human athletes like Sceptre. If these champions of long ago had the advantages our modern day wonders revel in, then maybe we wouldn't be so quick to dismiss history.

 

I doubt Darwinian theories are of any influence at all.

Nutrition and technical science have been the key changers.