Crist: The great distaffers..

[RolloTomasi]

Originally Posted by Indian Charlie

for starters, most of her career was spent running against pretty mediocre fillies, high figs or not.

she also seemed to find ways to lose in the really big races she was in. Beautiful Pleasure was a really good mare, but some of these others she lost to, or struggled to beat, they left alot to be desired.

she was visually speaking, not that impressive a horse. watching her, i always felt like i was watching a plodder that was picking off tired horses that had nothing left.

i never did understand the high figs she got, as she almost always ran slow times, with slow closing fractions coming after decent to moderate paces. certainly not every time, but in the first half of her career, she screamed plodder to me.

finally, there was just this intangible quality about her that's hard to convey in a post. back in those days, i was no lover of eastern racing, but there were plenty of horses in the east that i was a big fan of. I say this, because i had the utmost confidence that she'd lose the Oaks, and both appearances in the distaff, and it had nothing to do with me being a biased fan of california racing.

I'm not going to make a case for her as an all-timer or anything, but I disagree on a couple of your points. As far as the competition goes, Escena, Glitter Woman, Jersey Girl, Heritage Of Gold, Sister Act, and Manistique were all Grade 1 winners and Lu Ravi and Silent Eskimo were millionaires, so I wouldn't look too down on them.

As far as the plodder status, at least as a 3yo, I thought she had a pretty good turn of foot and certainly had stamina to go along with it. Don't really recall her 4yo races that much.

I liked her a lot in the KY Oaks. Her modest 3rd in the Ashland following a bust out win in the Bonnie Miss was a near carbon copy of the way Unbridled ran for Carl Nafzger in the Blue Grass prior to his Derby win. Unfortunately, IIRC, Jerry Bailey moved much too soon on her in the Oaks and got tagged near the line by a late running Keeper Hill (who I would label as the plodder above all else).