most impressive 2yo?

what gets you watching it is how, in spite of his best efforts, the camera man fails, in the end, to get the second horse in the same picture of the winner who is being eased and was never actually out of a canter.

I actually remember the names of some of the defeated horses from that race; quite famous and possible top class horses like green God and Most Secret. i can see how Alex Bird made a fortune backing Mill Reef for the Derby ante post. if he was racing now, the hype would be incredible.

I totally agree.  If we saw that kind of performance nowadays the hype machine would go into overdrive and the horse would be odds-on favourite for next year's Guineas!  It's amazing to reflect on the fact that Mill Reef finished 3 lengths behind the great Brigadier Gerard in the 1971 Guineas.  Two truly great horses...

great stuff, cheers....concrete railings, tho ..'shudders'

Mill Reef was before my time. The best 2yo performance I've ever seen remains Arazi's knife-through-butter demolition job in the 1991 BC Juvenile.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNZn919v6BU

Apalachee was probably the shortest price winter fav i can remember for the guineas after winning the 1972 Observer Gold Cup by 8l from Mississippian

Yes Apalachee was an amazing 2yo; lost the Guineas at odds of 4/7 or 4/9.

Arazi's run was incredible; but I personally don't believe anything run on dirt is necessarily a true performance as the drugs allowed rather ruin the sport and make it a sham. Which is a shame.

Its true though that Arazi's effort on the American dirt and under the US dope laws was better than anything he did before or since and he was a flop at stud.

You don't seem able to pass on the capacity to run on lasix or bute as a stallion!

OK, take your point about drugs.

One of the most impressive more recent performances has to be Canford Cliffs in the 2009 Coventry. The stable were VERY confident, this is why...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tErrSZfIfLU

One of my all time favourite sentences of horse racing commentary, an incredulous shriek from the Yank, ".......and Arazi runs right by him!!!"

for me celtic swing was an awesome 2 year old and his run in a top class 2000 guineas backed up his explosive 2 year old victories...wish they hadn't tried to stretch him out to a mile and a half but a brilliant 2 year old he was...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3ddA1oqVIE

I only go back as far as '85, so can't comment on the likes of Mill Reef, but I agree about Celtic Swing. He was the best 2yo I'd seen, until Frankel came along. It's unusual for a 2yo to show so much speed and be able to carry it over a mile at that age. When he didn't really go on to be a champion as a 3yo I remember Timeform getting some stick that they'd overrated the horse, but I think they were perfectly right to rate him so highly, he ran a huge performance on the clock when winning the RPT. Unfortunately (unlike Frankel) he never improved on that, he ran just as fast in the Guineas but Pennekamp had improved past him. The problem with his high rating is due to wfa factoring in that a horse will make a set improvement from 2 to 3, which he didn't.

Hi figgis, long time no speak; hope all's well with you.

Have a look at the u-tube video of Mill Reef's Gimcrack. It is quite fun.

I was a huge Celtic Swing fan. He won the Hyperion Stakes at Ascot over 7 furlongs on good to firm ground in a course record time at 2 then did his amazing Racing Post Trophy run on soft. He had everything, amazing speed and stamina;as you say he was something of a freak at 2, and maybe he never went on as expected at 3, but there were excuses, mainly injury.

I had 25/1 for good money for the Guineas; it was the best losing bet anyone ever had!

He was actually extremely unlucky in the 2000 Guineas for a number of reasons. Firstly he needed a bit of give and the ground at Newmarket that year was terrible. Bad winter weather followed by a drought had left Newmarket firm and like a rutted road. They never watered the ground so he as hugely at an unusual disadvantage. The at the start, an unruly brute called Chilly Billy veered left out of the stalls smashing in to him, causing Celtic Swing to lose ground before regaining an even keel. The going down the hill on the firm ground, Celtic Swing lost his action, before running on up the hill.

With hindsight, I think this is where he got injured as although he won the French Derby, he was never the same again. His injury re-emerged in the irish Derby later on. he lost the 2000 Guineas by about 10 inches still rallying gamely in spite of all the bad luck; On better going and without the interference of Chilly Billy he would have won the Guineas 9 times out of ten, he was in fact (on time figures too) a much faster horse than Pennekamp; who was a very fortunate winner indeed.

Still hurts me thinking about how the bookies were saved by a shocking combination of poor luck for Celtic Swing. I would have won a decent 4 figure sum if he had won. I backed him straight after the Hyperion Stakes before the bookies had a real chance to understand the value of his annihilation of horse that turned out to be a champion - Singspiel!

Hi COT, yes that Mill Reef video does look very impressive, he must've been some horse.
As for Celtic Swing, the Timeform timefigure would also incorporate wfa (something I'd seriously take issue with when rating performances on time), which means that Celtic Swing's earlier figure may have been higher than Pennekamp's Guineas win but as they were recorded months apart Celtic Swing's figure would be artificially raised due to the wfa allowance. In my view that's where the 138 rating looks questionable, as on his 3yo runs I don't see how anybody could rate him that high, Pennekamp's Guineas was up to scratch but no more than that and the scrambled win in the French Derby wasn't exceptional form. Like you say though, the injury obviously didn't help and he was definitely brilliant as a 2yo.

Hi figgis

I think the time that surprised me from memory was the one Celtic Swing did in the Hyperion Stakes. Me and a friend did a number of stop watch attempts on an old VCR of the time he took to do the last 2 furlongs at Ascot and he was like Frankel, basically going at a sprinter's pace there.

The rating of 138 that Timeform gave him was in the Racing Post Trophy at 2yrs. I think he beat (from bad and old memory admittedly) (group 3 horse) Annus Mirabilis by 15 lengths. Timeform always do a sort of combination of form and times for their ratings and I think they gave Annus Mirabilis 108 and Celtic Swing 138; about right too - 30lbs = 15 lengths over a mile. Of course he never went close to a rating that high again; as I say, I believe it was because he got knackered on that dreadful rutted firm going at HQ.

Yeah I remember that fast time in the Hyperion. Personally, I always think it's better when a horse has achieved a higher rating as a 4yo (not that they're usually given the opportunity), such as Frankel or Harbinger. In those cases the horses have actually run to those marks, whereas with younger animals part of the rating is inflated to what it would supposedly achieve if it continued to improve with age, which many actually don't in reality. Anyway, back to the 2yos, I also remember Arazi clocking a fast time before he went to America, but I would have no idea of properly rating exactly how good his Breeders Cup performance was, it was very impressive visually though.