putting his attitude aside, I support CTS and say that I believe Ãz§N is a better horse than ì©~¥Á (of course, I also agree that ì©~¥Á's achievement is greater than Ãz§N's, but if you are talking about ability, I think Ãz§N has more ability)...people keep talking about ì©~¥Á's second in the Japan Cup, however, in my opinion it may only be an one off achievement, please also remember that it was unplaced in 5 other occasions when it raced overseas (of course, those are also at Group One levels and there is no disgrace to be unplaced)...
in addition, I also disagree that you can always disregard the time in long distance races...although the time of long distance races will be, in general, more readily affected by the tempo of the races, the personal best finishing time of a horse is still relevant, in particular, if the horses in question have raced in that particular distance several times before (as in the case of Ãz§N and ì©~¥Á at 2,400m)...
I rate Ãz§N's win in the 2007 Chater Cup as one of the best (if not the best) performances at Group one level in Hong Kong in the last 10 years. He has beaten VOR comprehensively and in the process smashed Red Bishop's previous record time at 2,400m by more than 1 full second...I think ì©~¥Á has raced at 2,400m in Hong Kong for at least 13 times (presumably, the pool is big enough to cover fast tempo, slow tempo, fast track and slow trace), and has never come close to that time
Finally, although the HKJC has only published individual time-split in the last 2 seasons, you can always estimate the individual time-split by looking at the time-split of the winning horses...
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