How can anyone argue that Sea The Stars should be rated higher than Harbinger

Who is? Anyone who knows about racing knows how Sea The Stars won his races

Maybe if STS connections had kept him in training we would have found out

I am not entirely convinced STS had another 12.5 lengths in hand when beating Youmzain in his Arc

am not entirely convinced Harbinger could beat a field that just beat the pacemaker again either.

DD you assume Youmzain ran to the same level of form yesterday as he did in the Arc behind STS. I don't think he did, perhaps running 6lbs (4L) below his Arc form. That would suggest STS would have had to bt Youmzain 8.5L to equal Harbinger's performance y'day. While that would represent a mammoth 6.5L step forward from STS, he undoubtedly suffered a poor passage at Longchamp and overcame that sprinting clear a furlong out to make Group 1 class animals look like they were cantering. I'm not sure he would have won by 8.5L flat out with maximum effort to the line, but it would certainly have been 5L+ imo.

Roll on the Arc & another top performance from Harbinger!

We will have to agree to differ

I believe I agreed with you! The point I made was not to make literal reading of formlines - not every horse runs to the same mark, every time. All the best.

Cheers Biggie.

Sometimes we all take ratings too seriously instead of getting a buzz from a memorable performance.

Good luck.

p.s. I was actually agreeing to differ with Reyes. It just took me a bloody long time to post

Who has Harbinger beat over 8&10 furlongs ?

STS will always be the greater horse for what he achieved at 3 - but not necessarily the better horse.

It all depends how you measure better. I'd go with STS because he was a dual distance horse who won top races between 8-12f. However, let's see what Harbinger does outside of Ascot first before all this talk gets too far. It wasn't that long ago people were saying Workforce could be better than STS.

See thr Stars did it severel times. Hard to believe Harbinger can ever match his King George win. If he can reproduce it again must be virtually greatest horse ever

He's won one Group 1 beating some poor horses. I dont like talking about times comparing races i like to judge the quality of the animals in the race and you have to be honest it was not a great field. People have a problem of seeing horses win well and say that there the best horse because its fresh in there memory just like breeders saying that this years foal is the best the mare has had yet but the problem is people get excited and there statements are usually wrong.

good reply uncle puncle, sts over a mile in the 2000 beat ghan amrhas and delegator the former need to say more the latter group2 at best  ., rvw in the places , but are we massively , overrating rvw  , the only horse that he beat and has shown himself to be top class is paco boy, taking zacinto into account again need to say more.the eclipse great finish poor race how can you expect a leger winner to beat a guineas winner over 10,conduit ran him to 4/5  lengths and i can tell you i dont think stoute would rate that one in the same parish as some of his best middle distance stars even though he won 2 breederscups.twice over deinetly ran a stinker there, then sts ran in mickey mouse races with a handful of runners ok bbeat **** easily enough but so did others that season and again i dont reckon hes one of the greats from obriens yard.nevertheless the arc performance was excellent, the field average and the filly the previous year if m memory serves me well lost a few lengths at start and still came away from youmzain who is a group 2 at best .imo.in winning the races he did sts must always be remembered as a great racehorse, but i honestly reckon he wouldnt have lived with dancing brave, lammtara , nashwans etc

a good-natured thread

As I see it the ratings are as they should be based on the way they are evaluated. Do I think this makes Harbinger a better horse than STS? Not by a long way at this moment in time.

As I see it the ratings are inline with the way these things have always been evaluated, race by race. Do I think this makes Harbinger a better horse than STS? Not by a long way at this moment in time.

Harbinger = the new Worforce imo

Fecken hell theres been three horse since STS that have all suppose to have been better than him.
First we had St Nicholas Abbey the next great thing after a wide margin Racingpost...gets stuffed in the Guineas! That was only a blip Workforce was the real next great he flopped on Saturday. Now we have Harbinger what do all these pretenders have in common ONE wide margin victory in a Group 1.
Horses like STS , Nijinsky, Dancing Brave etc are the true greats because they ran to form over 8f-10f-12f at Group one level race after race. Thats what ratings should be judged on.

Harbinger needs to win at least 2 more Group 1s before he enters great horses discussions.

Harbinger's wide margin win looks rock solid. St Nicholas Abbey's win was achieved in a slow time so questionable wether it is as good as it looks. Workforce's Derby win was a strange race with the 2nd seeming to blast off too fast for his own good round Tattenham Corner and yet still managed to finish 2nd. Surely would have been been closer to the winner with a more even paced effort. Yet he has flopped badly both times he has ran since. The time of the race was exceptional. I still can't really make my mind up about Workforce. Harbinger can become the best horse I have ever seen if he can back up his King George run but the doubt remains that it was so good can it possibly be true? Group 1s are just not won by 11 lengths. Racing Post ratings have Harbinger running to 135 but to get this they have assumed every other horse ran below form. Youmzain has been given his worst form rating in Europe for 4 years.

Officialy rated 135 which seems sensible - just slightly erring on the side of caution.

until he does it again at least once it should be trewated as a hawk wing lockinge performance!!