The Coral Eclipse Legends

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Gladness said:
The St Leger isn't an "extreme" distance and Shergar lost because he wasn't bred to stay that distance. His sire barely got a mile and a quarter and he was from a fast female line propped up with stayer Val de Loir. I remember there were some people who doubted he would stay 12 furlongs
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King Shergar said:
As I've always maintained, I'm far from convinced that Shergars defeat in the St Leger was purely down to not staying, I think it was a combination of the trip and the tough schedule he'd had. Over a mile and a half he galloped all over Cut Above in the Irish Derby, and won like a horse who was 20+ pounds superior to his rival. As the commentator said he was only in an exercise canter. You won't see a G1 won with more ease. So whilst I accept the extra 2 and a half furlongs may have brought the pair closer together, would the extra distance really see Shergar being ridden along and struggling to keep up with 2 furlongs to go? This was to a rival he had galloped all over only a couple of months before. I think the busy schedule had taken its toll on Shergar that year, and that's why he didn't run in the Arc. Very similar to Nashwan who had a similar busy schedule to Shergar, and was well beaten at 1/6 in an Arc trial race:biggrin:
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Similar to Nijinsky too - O'Brien had said the Arc was too soon after the St Ledger but the owner (Charles Englehard Jr) insisted. Turned out the owner was very ill and died the following year!!
 
TC (Lovely Geezer) said:
Similar to Nijinsky too - O'Brien had said the Arc was too soon after the St Ledger but the owner (Charles Englehard Jr) insisted. Turned out the owner was very ill and died the following year!!
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Yeah I think that is always a silly double to try to complete, had Nijinsky won that Arc though, he could lay claim to being the greatest. Certainly in terms of races won anyways. I think he was only beaten narrowly aswell, so he nearly did pull it off :biggrin:
 
cityhull said:
Sea the Stars managed to cope with such a tough schedule
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Sea The Stars didn't have as many miles on the clock as Shergar did in his 3yo career. Sea The Stars had most of his runs at 10f and even one at a mile. I'd of liked to have seen how he got on in the National Hunt sires Classic the St Leger.

What Sea The Stars did was a remarkable run of victorys, and his consistency has to be admired. However his level of performance was not that of a superstar. He was all out to score small margin victorys over the likes of Delegator, Fame And Glory, Rip Van Winkle, Mastercraftsmen and he beat Youmzain less impressively than Zarkava did the year before in The Arc:biggrin:
 
The connections of Sea The Stars were very shrewd with him - scratched him from the Irish derby because of the going and ran him in the Eclispe instead. His 3 year old campiagn was 2nd to none <ok>
 
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In terms of races won perhaps, though Nijinskys 3yo campaign was also very impressive in terms of races won.

But Sea The Stars level of performance was never that of a great horse:biggrin:
 
King Shergar said:
In terms of races won perhaps, though Nijinskys 3yo campaign was also very impressive in terms of races won.

But Sea The Stars level of performance was never that of a great horse:biggrin:
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I think his Arc performance was very impressive - just as good if not better than DB's!!
 
Would rank them about the same, though I've seen atleast 10 Arcs won more impressively than Dancing Braves win :biggrin:
 
Why wasn't it as impressive, as he didn't run away from them all? Perhaps he was just a very clever horse and just did what he had to do. Look at his arc, got a horrible run through but did what he had to do to win the race
 
cityhull said:
Why wasn't it as impressive, as he didn't run away from them all? Perhaps he was just a very clever horse and just did what he had to do. Look at his arc, got a horrible run through but did what he had to do to win the race
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Because every victory looked workmanlike to win by a small margin. It wasn't like he was winning a lentgh pulling double was it?

If you watched any of Sea The Stars G1 victorys, you'd just put the performance down as a bog standard renewal of that race. He never won with any style or by any distance.

If you want to see 2 genuine 140 rated horses then watch some of Shergar or Dubai Milleniums wins. Those 2 horses earned the ratings they got. Sea The Stars rating was purely sentimental, and the high ratings for Fame and Glory and Rip Van Winkle just to justify that are also a joke :biggrin:
 
How do you know that if Shergar was up against Sea The Stars that STS wouldn't go with him, you don't. Nobody does.
 
Sea The Stars boasts the fastest Eclipse time - also smashed the track record in the Judmonte despite only 4 runners taking part and that was on the bridle!!
 
TC (Lovely Geezer) said:
Sea The Stars boasts the fastest Eclipse time - also smashed the track record in the Judmonte despite only 4 runners taking part and that was on the bridle!!
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First of all times can be taken with a pinch of salt, as the ground on the day and the pace plays a big role. Not to mention that rails are often moved into different areas of courses to look after the ground. So the races are rarely run on the same piece of track.

And he didn't set a track record in the Juddmonte international, as Duke Of Marmalades time the year before was 4 seconds faster. I'm not sure what the actual record is though :biggrin:
 
King Shergar said:
First of all times can be taken with a pinch of salt, as the ground on the day and the pace plays a big role. Not to mention that rails are often moved into different areas of courses to look after the ground. So the races are rarely run on the same piece of track.

And he didn't set a track record in the Juddmonte international, as Duke Of Marmalades time the year before was 4 seconds faster. I'm not sure what the actual record is though :biggrin:
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Maybe -As Sea the Stars derby time was 8 seconds faster than Shergars - or roughly 25 lengths ;)
In fact, Shergars winning time was the 2nd slowest in the last 100 years (only Teenoso's time was worse, and that was on the heaviest going Espom has ever seen)
 
For some reason Duke of Marmalade's Juddmonte was over half a furlong less
 
Only an eejit places much emphasis on distances when said horse only wins by small distances each time. Moscow Flyer was renowned for beating a 140 animal a length or two, the same way as he'd beat an Azertuoip or a Well Chief.

Animals like Sea the Stars and Moscow Flyer only did enough as they were very intelligent animals. They kept plenty for themselves therefore to downgrade Sea the Stars because of this is very naive :biggrin:
 
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