Walt Williams Neck wrote:
JOR I have Curlin,Cigar,Sip Away,John Henry,and this horse (and of course Big Red)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C9qRAtPLVwWalt, those are all great horses, but with the exception of Curlin, none of them was a force in the Triple Crown races. For me, if we're talking about the greatest American horses, they have to have made a statement in the Triple Crown.
The demands of that series tests a horse like nothing else. Being asked to go a mile and a quarter the first Saturday in May, then shortening up to what can really be an extended sprint with the hairpin turns on the layout at Baltimore just two weeks later, and finally stretching back out to a buck and a half in the Test of Champions at Belmont.
And I'd be more willing to put Curlin in that exalted company if he hadn't been beaten by a filly.
All that said, I love John Henry. He is the workingman's horse. I've got a picture of him on the wall of my office with the Shakespeare quote as a caption. "Some are born great, some achieve greatness..." And of course, Forego had the misfortune of being born the same year as you know who.