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Originally Posted by Danzig
there's a reason i said he's ordinary. every year we have a three year old champ, every year said champ does a couple of things that are noteworthy. once in a while you have a horse that does so many things so extraordinarily, that years later he's still spoken of with awe and reverence.
big brown isn't extraordinary. he's going to be the top 3 yo, for good reason. but he's not extraordinary.
look at it this way-you have above average, average, and below average horses. three categories, so conceivably a third of all horses are above average, a third below, and a third in the middle. i'd put him in the middle. maybe the upper middle, but the middle all the same. in other words, average. ordinary. not ordinary as in a claimer, ordinary when you stack him up to others who have raced at this level in years past.
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In other words, Big Brown is an ordinary very good horse? I guess I'd agree with that. Affirmed was an ordinary horse, too. He was an ordinary great horse. If we look at Sniper's 'elite of elite' list, we could probably say that Affirmed is a below average horse. Use of "ordinary" can be okay, depending on who we are comparing to.
Who are we stacking Big Brown up against? All of the 400+ horses nominated to the Triple Crown in recent years? I'm sure you'd agree he is in the top third of those horses. Are you comparing Big Brown to the actual triple crown runners of the past 10 years? I'd still put him well into the top third. I find it hard to believe that you wouldn't, too. Now if we are comparing Big Brown to other recent horses who were in the top 2 or 3 of their respective generations, I can at least see how you might use the words "ordinary" or "average".
I took issue with your original post, "
big brown wouldn't be any faster if mother theresa owned him and the pope rode him. he's an ordinary horse, but he's better than his peers. that doesn't make him great.", because it wasn't clear to me that you were comparing him to anything but all other horses. If you meant he's an ordinary top 3-yr-old, I'd agree at this point. Your point that most top 3-yr-olds have done something that's considered noteworthy is right on.
--Dunbar