Dalasan/Merits Of Euros Jamal/djebel discussion

Benbatl won 4 group 2 races after running well behind Winx, he was injured quite often.

Addeybb won the Champion Stakes between his Queen Elizabeth victories.

Cross Counter won The Dubai Gold Cup before running close up placings behind Stradivarius and subsequently losing all form. 

The idea of Earlswood being "an established A Grader" shows how wildly different the definition of these things can be to anyone.

Earlswood had only start beyond Group 3 level, and got toweled up beaten 9L in the Irish Derby (running 3 would still have seen him beat 7).

That is about as far form an established A-grader as you can get. Closest example I can see in our 3yos (looking quickly) would be calling Character an established A-grader.

Djebel's kine of thinking/interpretation of horses isnt very good as he has shown on quite a few occasions. But yes I agree with you, Zaaki wasn't a good horse in Europe. Good to see you see it exactly how it is 

"He came to Australia with a steadily climbing official handicap mark of 112"

Zaaki had an official rating of 112 on 1/6/2019, it remained either that or 113 for the next 10 starts. Including his HK run where he was sent out over 100/1.

He'd capped out as a being a competitive/winning chance in the right Group 3 over there.

And as I also said, the stable always believed he was high class but could not, for whatever reason, get it out of him on the track.

He has clearly thrived down here and loved it and is racing genuinely. 

I know nothing of the sort.

You give weight to these official ratings, which is back to my point... your definition of A graders is very different to many peoples (mine included).

The problem with the majority of people they think group 2 and 3 is low level racing.

Think It Over was being beaten in BM88 races at start 16.

If he is a B grader I am a monkeys uncle. 

That is 350 out of 13000 runners with an official rating. So that is the top 3% if we include jumpers as part of the available flat population, which we shouldn't.

Everyone knows your thoughts on the cause...

To the question that started this thread... it is pointless. We are arguing opinions that I doubt will ever change. I consider an A-grade horse to be a horse that would be considered a genuine winning chance when it turns up in Group 1 races.

You consider an A grade horse to be listed performed or better. Hence any foreign trained horse that wins a Group 1 down here will be an A-grader as it wouldn't have gotten a a start otherwise.

Why is it a horses like State of Rest and Adelaide can win the Cox Plate? There is a lack of depth in our middle distance and staying horses so we have few flag bearers, some of which probably don't make the race anyway.

You harp on about training methods, but the reality is we do breed sprinter milers. If we had this well of staying talents they would be showing up somewhere, if only mid-week races, but they don't because we don't breed or focus on them.

It leaves a very shallow top of the pool, which means we have to wait multiple seasons for something that would be competitive with the top international horses, and often don't have much to compete with the mid-tier runners they bring out.

The Cox Plate particularly favours Europeans with the long sprint sustained sprint that they are used to running in, compared to the sit and sprint most of our WFA races to be, and that is near impossible to change domestically as any horse would be giving away so much in the lead up races settling back and not getting into it, that it won't happen.