How good does this make Ebony Flyer?

Ok fair darts...accepted!

well put magic take a bow

it is a great pity that the useless people in charge of racing scrapped the wfa champion stakes that was run over 2000m at greyville near the end of the season...it always attracted a small but high quality field and my greatest memory of this high class race was fools holme winning it with felix up after he had suffered his only defeat at the hands of occult in the july...when asked before hand who he had to beat felix answered the course record...he won the race in 2mins flat and smashed the course record...if this race was still around it could have answered many questions that have been on this thread and going back in time imagine the dead heaters in the july pp and dd lining up in this type of event...we can only dream

just to add another race these morons scrapped was the john skeaping stakes run at turfontein in september a wfa race for 3 and 4yos over 1800m and it gave people the first indication of the strength of the 3yo crop against the 4yo crop...i dont think older than 4yos were allowed but will check...i recall the likes of be noble zamit swan prince in this race

Spot on Pirates,that was a race that really sorted out "opinion" and answered questions.
(2 races I remember particularly well were Force Ten overhauling the great Sentinel to show he didn't stay and In Full Flight beating Mazarin and William Penn to show how good he really was!)

On the subject of Swan Prince, was that the horse where Piggott had one of his greatest rides here, in addition to the Malster?

Yeah Pirates one thing I have noticed is that recently the 3 year olds seem to do much better in the July than in the past..it was usually a top 4 year old colt that used to win ..like in the days of Over the Air..I remember it distinctly that you would always look for the best 4 year old colt around and they would normally contest the finish.

I agree with Pirates. Losing the Skeaping was idiotic, and the Champion Stakes' demise left a hole in the SA programme the size of the Grand Canyon. I suppose some number cruncher was responsible.(td)

magiclips Wrote:

---

> Amazing how this discussion has deviated from the
> original premise of how good Ebony Flyer's form in
> the Cape Fillies Guineas has been made to look.
> Of course it's all in the definition. Is Igugu an
> all time great? If your list of all time greats
> consists of three or four, no. If it consists of
> 100, yes.
>
> It is absolutely true that in winning the Triple
> Tiara she achieved something never done before,
> but a unique achievement in and of itself does not
> make a horse a world beater. That Igugu is
> entitled to be considered the current star of SA
> racing is hardly open to much dispute, but to
> label a horse a "Champion" that has never been
> tested in a WFA race is premature. As I said
> before, WFA races are the true championship tests,
> but unfortunately we don't have any worthy of high
> status beyond 1600m in SA. That is not Igugu's
> fault, but it remains a fact nevertheless.
>
> Having said all that, she is a fantastic
> advertisement for horse racing and I would love to
> see her conquer the world. Whether the headache
> of African Horse Sickness will allow her the
> opportunity to travel any time soon remains to be
> seen. For the time being, she is indeed racing's
> darling. Whether she is a champion is a
> subjective matter, and there is really nothing
> more to add to this without going around in the
> same circles over and over again. I love her as
> much as the next man, but in the past dozen years
> we have developed the unfortunate (if
> understandable) habit of comparing everything of
> considerable class to Horse Chestnut. Igugu may
> be a better candidate than most, but she still
> isn't Horse Chestnut.
>
> And for those of us who think the July is the only
> true indicator of championship class in SA, then
> the best horse by a country mile of the last 60
> years must have been El Picha. He won it twice,
> which to some minds makes him a far better horse
> than Horse Chestnut or Empress Club, who never won
> it at all. The July is a great race and it
> remains the king of the castle in terms of
> prestige, but it is a handicap. Nowhere else in
> the civilized racing world is a handicap
> consistently taken to be a country's best
> indicator of championship status, with certain
> exceptions (like Makybe Diva winning the Melbourne
> Cup three times).
>
> I am not trying to run Igugu down. I just think
> that some of the things that are now being said
> about her are a bit over the top. It will
> nevertheless be a travesty if she doesn't get
> horse of the year, but she surely will and that
> makes me as happy as anyone else.

(tu)(tu)(tu)(tu)(tu)

magiclips Wrote:

---

> "As I said before, WFA races are the true championship tests,
> but unfortunately we don't have any worthy of high
> status beyond 1600m in SA.


Mr Magic please tell me if the july was a WFA race how much would igugu have carried...60 less age allowance less sex allowance

Strictly on weight vs distance beaten, the July would have been won by poor old Big City Life it if were run at WFA. That's the theory, but of course we cannot know how much more Igugu would have pulled out if she'd been seriously challenged. Anyway, we can speculate forever and forever and it doesn't change anything. The July is a handicap, Igugu won and won well. Good for her - we need a "talking" horse!

Anyway, if we all agreed on everything we would not be human beings, we would be robots. I don't know about the rest of you, but I wouldn't want to be a robot.

Magic the only nice thing about being a robot would be that robot's dont have to pay taxes:)