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REFLECTIONS I By Nelson Dunstan Old Old Argument Is With Us Once Again Is Citation Best Racer Since Man o War At 1 2 Miles Red Count Fleet Citation Citation Now Bidding for Highest Honors HonorsLEXINGTON LEXINGTON Ky June 15 15The The old old argument is revived again Over the weekend in New York we heard the same questions asked that we are now hearing in Kentucky and they are Is Citation the best race horse since Man o War Would you say Citation is the equal of Man o War and the third and toughest of all What would be the outcome of a race between Man o War Count Fleet and Citation at one and onehalf miles 126 pounds each Naturally there are many different answers to these questions for one of the interesting phases of horse racing or any other sport for that matter is that every fan is entitled to his own opinion especially when the merits of two three or four champions who never met but are regarded as the best in their par ¬ ticular years come up for discussion The trouble is that there is no definite yardstick by which to measure the relative class or speed of two horses who never raced one another or horses who were in competition in different generations down through the years Some people would tell you that Boston the sire of Lexington was the greatest horse ever to race in this country Others would say Lexington but those horses raced more than too years ago and in fourmile heat events so there is no gauge by which to measure them themIn In winning the Belmont Citation demonstrated that while a horses earnings are an indication of his class they are a very misleading barometer for comparison of horses who raced in different periods Furse and stakes values reflect the prosperity of a sport in certain years A quarter of a century ago the values were small compared with those of the present day When Man o War won the Belmont he earned 7950 and Count Fleet garnered 35340 but in winning the eightieth running last Sat ¬ urday Citation enriched the Calumet coffers by 77700 In other words Citation earned almost 10 times as much as Man o War did in the same race Then too the time In which each of these three horses won the Belmont is a poor basis of comparison for the simple reason that all of them won with such ridiculous ease that it is im ¬ possible to say how much faster they could have run had some horse given them a tussle Man o War had only one opponent in the Belmont And he was just loping to win by 20 lengths Count Fleet won by 25 lengths and Citation by eight lengths but in each of these cases the margin could have been vastly increased had their re ¬ spective jockeys seen fit to drive them harder After Cita ¬ tions victory Eddie Arcaro made the statement that had he known he was so close to Count Fleets Belmont Stakes record of 228 he would have let out another notch or two Citation was timed in 228 Bolingbroke holds the Belmont track record of 227 227In In England as well as in this country there has always been controversy about who was the greatest horse Some years ago the fine newspaperman Harry Price conducted a poll on the greatest horse ever to race in this country Man o War finally came out on top but to the surprise of everyone he won by only one point Memory fails us as to whether the second horse was Colin or Sysonby From that day to this we cannot recall a newspaper column which caused so much controversy as the one in which Price published the result of his poll Hin ¬ doo and Exterminator drew quite a few votes and we recall that one of the ballots cast jvas for Duke of Magenta a son of Lexington who won the Belmont Stakes in 1878 If we were in New York and not down here in Kentucky we could write with nore accuracy as we would have the records at hand But what ve want to bring out here is that while Big Red was the winner iis margin was very close closeToday Today Man o War is regarded as the greatest horse that ever raced on the American turf When sent to the farm he was just as successful as he was on the race course Since his day several horses have been hailed as the best since Man o War For a short time the lat ters own son Crusader was thus exalted and early in his career predictions even were made that he eventually would prove a better horse than his sire We heard the same thing about War Admiral but his defeat by Sea biscuit ended all that talk There were others including Whirlaway and Alsab Then Count Fleet came along and there was a rising vote that here finally was the horse who should be crowned prince of thoroughbreds of which Man o War was king It may be that in the twilight of time we have allowed ourselves to become imbued with the thought that Man o War was such a great horse that he will never have an equal That of course is wrong for just as he came along to become the champion so can another horse appear who is his equal if not his This writer is not one of those who now maintains that Citation great as he is is equal or superior to Man o War The unfortunate part regarding Big Red is that he raced only 21 times during his entire career and was seen only as a two and threeyearold This writer has no patience with those who ask the question Who did he ever beat The answer is that he beat every horse that was ever sent against him It is true that Upset defeated him once as a twoyearold but what he did to Upset the next time they met was somewhat like to what Tony Zale did to Rocky Graziano even though the latter knocked Zale out the previous time they met Citation has now raced 20 times He was beaten by his stablemate Bewitch as a twoyearold and we also discount the one beating he suf ¬ fered this year at the heels of Saggy for he came right back to dispel any thought that Saggy was within his shadow In the Chesapeake Stakes he gave Saggy the same kind of a beat ¬ ing that Man o War gave Upset in their return match There is no doubt that in Citation we have a great horse in our midst and it may be that by the end of this year we will be willing to give him the crown as the greatest of all American horses not excepting Man o War Only time can tell
