Tom Segal's view on COT

Nick Mordin wrote a book called 'Winning without thinking'.  Several years later Tom Segal was the author of this one...

Never understand why people get upset about this sort of thing. It's just his opinion. Whether he is just attention seeking who knows?

Two things upset me more. This idea that the views of the likes of Segal and Walsh, to name two, are actually more important than anyone else. They are not in any shape or form a definitive view. Then the recency bias as if everyone is too lazy to explore the history of the sport. There were loads of great horses before the likes of Frankel and Sea The Stars.

he,s basically saying people at timeform haven't a clue what their talking about, a punter says that and segal will be all over the punter defending timeform

so we can assume segal is not one of the so called good judges who think under different circumstances the French horse might beat COT or is he saying the French horse would also beat Frankel ?

COT beat 1 other group one ,winner in that race,some weapons grade assumptions based on that,that he,d turn Frankel over

Can someone post the full article?

Another decade vs decade thread that'll get nowhere and prove nothing , time better served looking through todays cards for all you form students.

It's very easy to be dogmatic about something that can never be proven and ratings comparisons are worthless , imagine using ratings as a selection criteria for daily bread and butter racing , you'd end up in the poorest of poor houses.


Good luck today all   

Clearly you cannot prove anything for sure, but Timeform ratings are not meaningless. There is no harm in gentle debate. Just don't take it too seriously. History is one the main things racing has going for it, and I would much rather emrace it, than ignore it.

Surprised if they go to America……certain defeat imv

Zoffany nearly beat Frankel and nobody calls him a world beater.

inconsequential hypothetical nonsense.

next.

What about Calandagan ridden closer and not having to do the quickest furlong of the race ( 10.74 ) to get close ?  Interesting although it was a course record it was only the 15th
quickest timefigure  ( COT ) of the race this century ( timeform )

It is worthless thinking about COT v Frankel. But sometimes you are faced with deciding whether a great horse can be outstayed by a very good horse. It happened in '72 in this race.

I'm old enough to remember when TS tipped Roberto to beat the Brigadier and everybody laughed. No one was laughing when Braulio Baeza returned to the winner's enclosure!

Hang on, I might be getting TS confused with Prince Moneylulu there.

🤪

Utter sh1t on the opinion of Tom Segal is OP is correct. I think Frankel and Dancing Brave could carry City Of Troy anyday, anywhere without breaking sweat.

You will know the truth if they go for the classic….personally I think they will bottle it….

You'll never know the truth Ace as there'll be far too many different versions , as stated it's easy to be dogmatic over something that can never be proven   

A tough race Hayden……

Of course but hacking up still won't enable any definitive outcome on decade vs decade , all you'd do is muddy the waters even more by comparing a globetrotting champion vs a past champion that barely left its own postcode.

The outcome will always be what you want to believe it to be   


How many bets you had or planning to have today Ace.

Protest Rally in the last at Musselburgh…..win & place……

C&D fit as a flea…..7lb claim Bla bla it’s all there when you dig the form tbh….

Some of you get the journalism you deserve!
Royal Rhyme, rated 113:pressed leader, etc, beaten 11 lengths.
Excelebration, rated 125: prominent, unable to go with winner, etc, beaten 11 lengths.
I think Frankel would have been able to get by City of Troy. But we're all entitled to our opinions of course. All valid. Madonna just as valuable as Mozart etc etc.

5f?

All valid indeed Howellsy , it's just that my view is that i haven't got a clue regarding the outcome.

Match race, even money. Who would you back?

Over a mile Frankel , no idea over 10f or beyond , purely on gut feeling with nothing to substantiate.

Over a mile, Frankel no offers, 10f, Frankel 1/2..but that might be big!!... 12f.....I think Frankel would probably go off a shade of odds on. IMO

Frankel over any of those distances....and Sea The Stars or Dancing Brave too over any of those distances too against COT.

We're too desperate to create the next greatest ever, don't think COTis the next one and nothing we've seen so far points to him being so.

Does the seagull understand ratings. There's a 14lbs difference between the 2. It's known as evidence.

If there's one thing the OR of a horse is slickster it certainly isn't evidence , it's either an opinion or an estimate , take your pick 

Not sure why anyone would get so annoyed by this.

The OP thinks Frankel would win, TS thinks COT would win, just differing options, what's wrong with that ?

Probably because there's a 14lbs difference in ratings. City may get that to 10lbs in time but that's a massive difference. Seagull needs pensioning off.

Picking winners must be easy for you slickster being such a believer in ratings being factual , just back the top rated.

laying , perfectly sensible post as it's what we do on a daily basis , generally disagree with each other and/or the official ratings.


Good luck tonight guys   

voicing controversial opinions gets you hits on social media

so following seagulls logic any horse rated within 15 lb of frankel coould on any given date under certain circumstances beat Frankel,its going to be a long list

What about Flightline, Equinox, or Enable? would one not have given Frankel or City of Troy a run for their money?

Not too sure how good they were in comparison, because they need a worthy opponent(s) to draw the performance out of them.

Countless horses out of Ballydoyle have been billed as the next coming of Jesus, but, Galileo aside for stud reasons,  none of them in AOB's tenure are spoken of in the same breath as Enable, Sea the Stars, Frankel, Dancing Brave.

And he has had lots and lots of really good ones, King of kings, Rock of Gibraltar, Minding, Love, Dylan Thomas, Mastercraftsman, Rip Van Winkle, ****, Paddington, St Marks Bacilica, giants causeway, High Chapparal, St Nicholas Abbey, Camelot, Churchill, Hawk Wing.
They almost get lost to history.

Istabraq would of beat them easy, no contest.

That's how easy it is to nonsense, now try talk sense and you have to have a reason for doing that!! Worlds gone mad.

the horse that very nearly beat frankel in the st james palace wouldnt get 12 lengths near the great horse in 99% of the time, the ride by quelly that day must be the worse ive ever seen, it was diabolical and god knows how frankel did win

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLmu_pHF0sA

That was a shocker Elis. The great horse got him out of jail .Seemed panicked by his own abdulla pacemaker.His riding of Frankel should have been an oppourtunity for Queally to elevate his career but seemed to do him as much harm as good. His ride in the Guineas wasnt so great either despite a superb performance from the horse.

Pointless speculation but the OP calling an opinion insulting is in itself insulting to anyone who does not agree with his own. Just to spice up the boring thread I will opine that Harbinger may have thrashed all those named had they run in his final race including breaking Frankel before the 10F pole. Also the ratings are nothing to do with Timeform for those who appear not to know and Harbinger ran off 123 and then upped to 135 for a performance that surpassed that of Frankels last race despite the ratings!! IMVHO of course.

Sir Henry's eyebrows said it all there

Harbinger got his rating racing on "concrete" against horses that wouldn't let themselves down. Doesn't mean his rating is wrong but ratings don't tell you the greatest horse just the form performance on the day.

Think I would put COT in the Mill Reef class which makes him a pretty special horse.

That's a very high bar, howard.

Komrade Howard, Harbingers last race was on Good Ground which is why the performance was so outstanding. HTH

Sounds like Aidan would agree sparrow.   Horse is another Hawk Wing toby one performance way better than the rest. Needed top of the ground no doubt about that. Nowt wrong with that but helps your rating if the other good horses in the race ideally like some cut.  King George he won odds-on fav didn't run his  race and serial loser Youmzain in 3rd. A long way from the strongest KG  but distances make it look good.  It was good but no more. Just my opinion.

So the track record not backing up the performance Komrade?

COT broke the track record at York.  But it was the 15th best timefigure in the race this century.  Track records per se are meaningless ( Phil Bull )

So you say the other horses would not let themselves down on good ground and the winning distance and time are irrelevant, when did you go skint Komrade, before or after the race?

just looking back at the race 5 runners not counting the 100/1 pacemaker. Fav wasn't himself. Not a vintage KG. But plenty love the performance you're not alone. I won't be one so I will leave it there.