It helps to actually know what you are talking about here at FR. I saw Secretariat LOSE three times. I mean I was there IN PERSON to see him lose. I was also there at Belmont to see his spectacular Belmont Stakes win. Were you even born yet?
Sham was a nice horse, but his principal claim to fame was losing to Secretariat. Without looking I cannot think of the name of any horse that ran behind Sham in a race that he won. Secretariat beat many better horses than Sham.
Horse races are just that. They are races, not time trials. The trip, surfaces, and conditions vary in ways that make time comparisons silly. Maybe we'll see if Big Brown is as awesome as he looked winning the Preakness yesterday when he races older horses later in the year. From what I have seen so far (all on TV) he might be.
ML/NJ
“Were you even born yet?”
Unfortunately I was. And I was at Valley Forge with Washington, but don’t remember seeing YOU there.
So far your horse has just won easily ( and slowly ) on fast tracks, against abysmal competition. I hope he can show his supposed greatness before they finally put him out to stud.
Track surfaces, in particular, have changed so much in the last 30-35 years...that it is pointless to compare horses by comparing the times they posted in different eras...even when comparing races at the same track. Jerry Brown at Thorograph did a multi-part piece on this a few years back