It is now two weeks downstream and still the flotsam and jetsam of the Longines Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) ravaged by Flightline keeps floating past. The big guy has been on display at Lane's End Farm, innocent of the carnage he wrought, intent upon doing in his next career what he did during his last. Hopes are high, but we know how those things sometimes turn out—don't we Conquistador Cielo, Fusiachi Pegasus, Point Given?
What Flightline does at stud should not matter when it comes to his legacy as a racehorse. And while that should be as obvious as stating your height has no effect on your IQ, there remains a cohort of racing followers and fans who conflate racing and breeding in their view of the finest Thoroughbreds from various eras.
Do we appreciate Precisionist and Cigar less because they were not procreative giants? Do we temper our adoration for Zenyatta because her foals have failed to win, or for Rachel Alexandra because her broodmare career was cut short?
For that matter, I would challenge anyone to name the single grade 1 races won by Into Mischief and Tapit , the modern shapers of the breed. They each managed only six races, same as Flightline.
Recency is an intoxicating mistress, hence the lasting the buzz generated by Flightline's Classic display. I'm sure it looked great on big screens far and wide, but there was nothing like being there, fully invested in the crowd and the moment, as he left very good horses dangling in the distance. It was a brilliant, unforgettable performance that discarded the notion of competition and replaced it with a wave of unadulterated joy in the presence of athletic perfection.
Was it the greatest performance of all time? Who cares, and who's asking? No one to be taken seriously, that's for sure.
Gary West, a respected colleague, let fly an opinion piece in the Thoroughbred Daily News this week that began with a reasonable critique of early stallion retirements and ended with a vow that Flightline would never receive his vote as 2022 Horse of the Year.
Having just survived a tumultuous mid-term election cycle, I'd hoped we could have put the highly subjective Eclipse Awards balloting on the back burner at least until Thanksgiving. But no, there must always be a horse race going on somewhere. (Here is a good place to mention that NBC's poll-watcher Steve Kornacki, king of the political horse race, has received membership in the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters Association. Offered without comment.)
In his opinion piece, West bases his "never Flightline" vote on 1) the colt's retirement after just six starts, and b) his slim resume of only three starts this year.
"Did he prove he could transfer his talent to the grass, as did Secretariat and Dr. Fager?" West wrote. "Did Flightline prove he could defeat quality competition while carrying 130 or more pounds, as Assault and Spectacular Bid and many other truly great racehorses have done over the years? Did Flightline prove he could successfully take on an international field that included the world's best and most accomplished performers, as did Curlin , Tiznow, and Cigar? No, no and no."
Accurate enough. Neither does the gentry wear powdered wigs, nor women cinch themselves in whalebone, nor scamps trade barbs like, "Yeah, so's yer old man." News flash—times change, and with them standards. But go ahead and judge a horse like Flightline by the same measuring cups used for Challedon, Whirlaway, and Coaltown. That way lies nothing but madness.
Setting aside Flightline's utter separation from the next best horses of his generation, there is plenty of precedent for brief Horse of the Year campaigns. Three races is the same as Native Dancer's total in 1953, and the legendary columnist Jim Murray wrote that, "Native Dancer might have been the greatest horse—this side of Man o' War—who ever lived."
Three is one less than four, the number of races Ghostzapper needed to be 2004 Horse of the Year, although I'm sure he got points from the West wing of the party for staying in training to race once the following year. Four of Conquistador Cielo's nine starts in 1982 were in allowance races, so let's be real. Horse of the Year Count Fleet came close to being Flightline-esque in 1943 during his six starts, but those all were against 3-year-olds. And on a planet far, far away—1983, in fact—All Along lost three of four starts in France, then came to America's greener pastures to trounce pretty much the same bunch in three major grass races to be acclaimed Horse of the Year.
The point being, there are no rules. And yet such historical tidbits mean nothing in the face of the argument that Flightline's people should not receive the gold trophy at the Eclipse Awards next January because they whisked him offstage just as things were getting interesting. Tautologically speaking, it's a solid case.
Will one protest vote make a difference? Of course not. Thirty years ago, A.P. Indy was anointed 1992 Horse of the Year by a vote of 276-1, that single holdout going for Lil E. Tee, the winner of the Kentucky Derby who won two of six starts. A.P. Indy, like Flightline, was a golden boy who was worth vastly more at stud than on the racetrack, but he did lose twice that year and battled back from a bad hoof, just as Flightline had his 2022 campaign interrupted in early spring by a bruised hock.
Otherwise, any suggestion that Flightline was unsound is refuted by a work pattern that makes James Brown look like a deadbeat. Once the hock was cleared, beginning April 10, he worked every seven days for nine weeks then ran in the Hill 'n' Dale Metropolitan Handicap (G1). He was given a few weeks of galloping, then beginning July 9 worked every Saturday morning for eight weeks, ran in the TVG Pacific Classic Stakes (G1), then worked every Saturday for six weeks leading up to the Breeders' Cup Classic.
In California, Flightline was how we told time.
Is Flightline the greatest horse ever? That was the comment from some poor soul that should drive anyone, including West, to distraction. It truly is a dumb question, defined in this case as both unnecessary and unanswerable.
It should be enough that Flightline, as a result of those six indelible appearances, opened the pores and released a vast flood of personal memories that summoned the notion of "greatest ever." There have been many. You know who they are. Sometimes their lofty reputations survive the tide of generations and the absence of living witnesses. Others have been fleeting images on TV screens perpetuated by YouTube views.
As for those who have been able to reach out and almost touch greatness as it walked past in the paddocks of Belmont Park, Saratoga Race Course, Santa Anita Park, Churchill Downs, and Hollywood Park—well, lucky us.
"Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined," wrote Toni Morrison.
That's good advice for those who quibble over greatness, how it's defined, and how much of it we deserve. Remember: Flightline was never asked to do what he did. He was simply turned loose, and look what happened.
