Cougar II fans need to vote for him, there's someone who is rather uneducated about racing and doesn't comprehend that this was a phenomenal horse and is ranking him down all the time. It's ridiculous. Vote him up!
I find it strange when horses like Cougar II, Zenyatta and Cigar get dismissed by people who ask, "Who did they beat?" while the same people endlessly praise horses who ran in a time when there were almost no horses in training at all.
COUGAR II was in the money 88% of the time after a 50 start career, with 40 of those 44 in-the-money starts being in stakes races. That's incredible. His in-the-money percentage matches FOREGO (also at 88%), and it is far, far, far better than the in the money records of many other superb runners, including: JOHN HENRY, DAHLIA, SEABISCUIT, ASSAULT, CARRY BACK, SHUVEE, NODOUBLE, CRIMSON SATAN, FORT MARCY, GAMELY, NATIVE DIVER, STRAIGHT DEAL, T.V. LARK, GALLORETTE, ANCIENT TITLE, RIVA RIDGE, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, EXCELLER, KEY TO THE MINT, KENNEDY ROAD, TYPECAST, LADY'S SECRET, PRECISIONIST, BAYAKOA, BEST PAL, SWORD DANCER, STYMIE, POLYNESIAN, DEVIL DIVER, BEWITCH, DISCOVERY, SIR BARTON, IMP, GREY LAG, EXTERMINATOR, VIGORS, BIG SPRUCE, etc.
A month ago this fabulous horse was at 8.50 and now he's at 8.32. Looks like someone has a vendetta, or they just don't know anything about horse racing. He was in the money 44 times from 50 starts, had 40 stakes wins and placings. The horse is great. Knock it off already.
He could definitely beat almost all of the horses ranked ahead of him.
The memories are still so vivid! Simply amazing.
Just because some fan got carried away a while back and scored everyone down just to score him up doesn't mean that you should vote this horse down. He most definitely belongs in the Top 100. Look at his race record, it's spectacular.
Here's a link to an article I wrote for Bloodhorse online about COUGAR II: http://cs.bloodhorse.com/blogs/racinghub/archive/2011/10/01/Remembering-the-Cougar.aspx
This was a great horse. It's ridiculous to see most of the horses ahead of him. He belongs in the top 50.
Now the overly excited Cougar fan is ranking down literally every horse in the top 40 so that he can bring Cougar back up! LOL! Classic!
Cougar was great. He had a beautiful presence and personality. He was consistent as they come, both on turf and dirt, in the money 44 of 50 times! Don't vote him down just because he has a few nutty fans.
Why not just give your horse a vote of 10 and move on? What's with all the bad votes for other horses, with the purpose of elevating your favorite? I absolutely love COUGAR but this is silly.
Oh wow...now the phantom Cougar fan has gone even more bananas! This time he has knocked Damascus and Nashua down to 8.91. I thought this was about ranking the best horses of all time, not your favorites. Keep Cougar in the top 40 but you don't have to get ridiculous, and you don't have to denigrate other, greater, horses.
I'm as big a COUGAR II fan as any - maybe the biggest - but seriously folks...in the last 20 minutes someone rated DAMASCUS and NASHUA down from 9.0 to 8.96 just so they could move COUGAR II up. Do what you want, but I think you're getting carried away. How low a score did you give to DAMASCUS and NASHUA, two of the greatest horses of all time, to get them to drop like that? They deserve 10's, but you probably gave them 3's. They're far better than that.
Funny how the Cougar II fans keep ranking down Buckpasser and Damascus and other great horses, repeatedly, so they can rank Cougar higher. Buckpasser and Damascus, and even several others, deserve better, wouldn't you say?
I think maybe some people are getting carried away with voting for Cougar. He was a great horse, to be sure, and on his best day he could probably beat anyone or come very close to doing so, but I think Top 20 is slightly generous. He was equally good on turf and dirt, always carried top weight, and was the proverbial gem of consistency, so I would put him in the Top 50, most definitely. I just think putting him above Whirlaway, War Admiral, Kelso, Buckpasser, Ack Ack, Damascus, etc., is slightly over the top. However, I think this was a great horse.
Top Rated Horse of his time but not quite as good as Manilla
A truly spectacular horse with an enormous fan following!
In one of the greatest travesties in the history of the NYRA, COUGAR II was disqualified from his 5 length romp in the 1971 Woodward Stakes for the most minor infraction, although he was clearly tons the best that day. He was sweeping to the lead and barely brushed TINAJERO while going on to a smashing score. That disqualification should have been overturned a long time ago. It was pretty ridiculous really. His name belongs on the list of Woodward greats!