The trainer did a great job keeping Holy Bull sound for 15 races and there wasn't a 16th race left in his body. We keep forgetting that racehorses are talented yet fragile creatures.

It still gets loud on Belmont Stakes day but on this day true racing fans came out, not to win money by betting Cigar at 1/9 but to savor his greatness and give him a sendoff suitable for the champion he was.

Unfortunately injuries are part of the sport. Thunder Gulch also got injured in the Jockey Club Gold Cup.

Lmao the two of you make me laugh. They got injured BECAUSE they chased Cigar. I know it's hard to hear when you really respect a horse who is classy, but this time it was they who got outclassed.

@@E_M_FEN Unbridled's Song in the Arlington Citation Challenge too

Are you implying Unbridled's Song was going to beat Cigar in the Citation Challenge? What might have been with US was already gone by then. Dramatic Gold was superior to US at that point, which he proved by beating Formal Gold in the Meadowlands Cup later that year. As for competing with Cigar, US didnt have the preparation, soundness, nor talent to threaten Cigar in the least. I think his injury was less an excuse and more the result of being overly ambitiously placed in such a race. Thunder Gulch, one could argue, came out of his matchup with Cigar injured because he had a heart bigger than his physical talents, and Cigar's superior speed forced Thunder Gulch, with the will to give everything he had, to push his body beyond its limit. Speed handicapper knew that Jockey Club Gold Cup was a mismatch and Bailey frankly said post-race that he spent no energy worrying about Thunder Gulch because he knew deep down the horses were at different levels. Holy Bull is a different story. Unlike the other two, who finished their races with Cigar and then whose connections offered injury as an excuse, Holy Bull suffered a.serious injury that unquestionably affected his performance because it caused him to be pulled up abruptly on the backstretch. And Cigar's pressure on Holy Bull didnt break Holy Bull. The injury happened on the middle of the backstretch, far too early for the pace demands of that race to have affected a horse like Holy Bull who had proven he could run that fast early and finish up at 9f and even 10f on numerous occasions. Holy Bull's injury was a fluke and thus nothing can be inferred about the relative ability of Cigar and Bull from that one meeting.

To emphasize my point about Unbridled's Song not being a serious contender in the 96 Citation Challenge, he never regained the trajectory he was on prior to the Derby after running a valiant 5th in the Run for the Roses. Given that US was up on a fast pace, his sheer athletic talent is what allowed him to open up a lead in upper/mid-stretch before the demands of that race, including a 10f distance he was never proven over, caused the wheels to fall off that final eighth. Between the Derby and Citation Challenge he was run down at 3-10 in the Peter Pan by a non-descript 3 year old, and later in 96(injury from Cy Challenge couldnt have been that severe), he was run down in an allowance again at odds on. He ran one more time in his career, winning the upgraded Olympic Handicap at 7f against 2 rivals early in 97.