Excellent posts , and yes understand Greg Wood's final comment .Tiger , Arkle did give two stone 5lbs to a Gold Cup winner in What A Myth , when that horse as a 9yo was arguably in his prime , rather than when it won the GC . But as Elise says , it would be hard for racing to be the only sport where overall standards havent improved , feed , medical treatment , exercise regimes , but you can only compare against the contemporary of the time to get greatness ratings.

Just because all the outside factors have improved it doesn't mean the horse itself has improved. I suspect it's the total opposite, and we now have as weak a breed as we have ever had. Why do you think that the best horses are basically wrapped up in cotton wool? Clearly trainers are worried that a harder campaign would finish them. Kauto Star had one run in a limited handicap. Why was that? Denman took in a handicap once a year. Everyone made such a big thing about that, but Arkle ran in major handicapd within a couple of weeks. If the latter day heroes had the same preparation as Arkle there would be nothing left standing in terms of opposition on Gold Cup day. Horses in those days used to run on ground that would now be considered unraceable with very little messing around missing targets because of the ground. It's much easier to justify Arkle's rating than the modern day horses who spent careers just beating inferior rivals in condition races. Most people will know that Arkle's ability led to the creation of two handicaps, one with, and one without. The horses running off bottom weight would be top weights in the 'normal' handicaps.