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Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS
Barbaro's 3 lifetime dirt wins:
* 1st by 3/4 of a length in the Holy Bull. 2nd place finisher Great Point's lifetime best Beyer is a 96 .. and he's currently running for 5K claiming tags in Puerto Rico. My Golden Song was 3rd.
* 1st by a half length in the Florida Derby. Sharp Humor was 2nd. He never won another race in 3 more tries.
* 1st by 6.5 lengths in the Kentucky Derby. Bluegrass Cat, who was beaten 21 lengths by Sinister Minister in his prior start, was 2nd. Steppenwolfer was 3rd. The same Steppenwolfer that just ran 6th in a Steeplechase race at Fair Hill the other day. A horse who has never ran a triple digit fig once before.
I'm sorry, but he beat absolutely nothing on dirt. And only once did he even ever run fast while beating nothing. I'm sure he was improving .. but he's so much more about what he might have done than what he actually did do.
Big Brown's Ky Derby win was clearly more impressive than Barbaro's. His prior form coming into the Derby was also more impressive. That's why BB was a strong favorite ... and Barbaro was only vying for favortisim with Sweetnorthernsaint and Brother Derek.
And if I'm not a big fan of Big Brown at all... how could I think much more of Barbaro?
As far as turf racing though ... Barbaro and Incurable Optimist were probably the two best 2yo turf horses I ever saw.
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You can throw around cute little pieces of trivia that doesn't matter like that, but fact is, the derby really was his first race, including turf, in which he put everything together and didn't run green.
As for favoritism, obviously that was due to what was to most people, unimpressive dirt starts. What I saw in those two races was quite different than what you saw, which after all this time is still puzzling.