Certainly, those kinds of horses would help. But I don't think they need them to be that good. I just don't think they've had more than a couple that were probably the kind that would be considered legit contenders, no matter where they spent the winter. I just don't feel like it's right to say something has failed when it's only had a couple of real chances to succeed. Personally, I feel like it's more logical to say Pletcher is a failure than Sheikh Mo. He's had more chances, he gets great stock, and he doesn't have them winter in Dubai so they take traditional American routes to get there and yet he's still winless. But I don't think he's a failure either. I think in both cases, it just hasn't happened yet. I feel that if Sheikh Mo had spent $5k instead of $5 million on his horses, they wouldn't be looked at as failures. They would be looked at as cheap horses that didn't amount to much and I don't think that because he's got tons of money and spends it like crazy should change the fact that most of those horses he's bought wouldn't have had a chance no matter how much they cost or where they were trained. I think his failure has been in evaluating the horses. That much we can all agree on.
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The real horses of the year (1986-2020)
Manila, Java Gold, Alysheba, Sunday Silence, Go for Wand, In Excess, Paseana, Kotashaan, Holy Bull, Cigar, Alphabet Soup, Formal Gold, Skip Away, Artax, Tiznow, Point Given, Azeri, Candy Ride, Smarty Jones, Ghostzapper, Invasor, Curlin, Zenyatta, Zenyatta, Goldikova, Havre de Grace, Wise Dan, Wise Dan, California Chrome, American Pharoah, Arrogate, Gun Runner, Accelerate, Maximum Security, Gamine
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