Bill Finley: "You can argue that Frankel did a good job of getting a lot out of a horse who had physical problems and/or that Ghostzapper was sensational when right. That's all true, but is he a Hall of Famer? To this voter, a Hall of Famer is a horse who proved itself time and time again, who passed numerous tests and conquered many challenges and challengers. How many times must a horse have run to be Hall of Fame worthy? I don't know the answer to that, but I do know it's more than 11." (So, what about Invasor and other horses of the aughts?"

"Beyond the coincidence of the numbers involved, the only thing any records Citation and Rapid Redux would have in common is the fact that they were established in a counter-clockwise direction."

"If Frankel can slam one of the 'big guns' over ten furlongs next year, then there's every chance he'll achieve a rating in excess of 145, thereby earning the title of Timeform's greatest ever racehorse."

Re: the first matings of Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta: "Never before in modern times have the careers of two female racehorses overshadowed male contemporaries for consecutive years. And chances are, any success by their offspring will be attributed to the mares’ genetic prowess while the failures will surely fall on the backs of the sires. That in itself constitutes a seismic shift in attitude."

"While the photographs might make some squeamish, they represent to me more than a simple record of a horse’s funeral. They represent a beloved ruler lying in state, his faithful subjects paying their last respects. They represent the end of an era -- the most magical and significant time in our sport’s history. And they show that, although his blood still courses through countless Thoroughbreds like Blame, Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta, Man o’ War was, after all, mortal."

"I had used the long train ride to study the form in Paris-Turf, the French racing daily. Try as I might, it was impossible to find anything that might beat Miesque in the Jacques Le Marois, which would be her first try against older horses. In the paddock she looked impeccable ..."

Freddie Head pays tribute to the champion mare.

"Miesque, the first two-time winner of a Breeders’ Cup race and the dam of major sire Kingmambo, was euthanized on Thursday at age 27 as a pensioned broodmare due to the infirmities of old age at the Oak Tree Division of Lane’s End Farm in Kentucky."

"He was the first American equine idol. In the age when flickering black and white ten-inch television pictures were all the rage, Native Dancer stood alongside Milton Berle, Ed Sullivan and Arthur Godfrey as a television luminary in the mid 1950s. Blessed with power, speed and playful charisma, Native Dancer regularly mugged for cameras and waggled his ears to the delight of his admirers. But more importantly, his image was easily recognizable in those grainy television images when viewers often had trouble zeroing in on the field of browns and chestnuts that all looked alike."

"Night was stealing across the huddled knolls and woodland beyond, enveloping ochre, gold and russet in the same gloom. We knew, now, that she was not invincible. She was better than that."

"Unbeaten in 19 races, Zenyatta has established a winning streak unrivaled in American racing. With a victory in the Breeders' Cup Classic, she will cement her legacy as the greatest female thoroughbred ever."

"First of all, the trainers were polled, and the collective memory of trainers like Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons, Ben Jones, Bert Mulholland, and others stretched back a long way. For the most part, it didn’t go back to Imp or Miss Woodford, however. They were responding to the oral tradition of the best mares of the 19th century handed down to them as yardsticks by their mentors. Second, that Miss Woodford -- nearly three-quarters of a century after she was born -- was considered fifth-best is staggering. That is serious respect."

"How would you, learned readers, compile a list of the greatest mares of the past 100 years? And which fillies and mares would be on your list? That pair of questions and the technical requirements to answer them are considerations that have been spinning round the gray matter for some time, especially when thinking about our contemporary addition to that list."

"When that corresponds to the kind of tremendous athletic talent we see in the Belmont -- talent that sets him not just above but a whole category apart from the other horses -- we see what seems to be impossible, a vision of where our understanding of limitations and categories breaks down, and something almost supernatural emerges. Not for nothing did Jack Whitaker on national TV resort years later to the Andalusian term Duende, usually applied to the effects of the performing arts or poetry, to describe Secretariat's eerie accomplishment ..."

"In the end, there will always be the hidebound contrarians who handcuff their definition of greatness to stiffly academic parameters, as if horse racing was nothing more than algebra writ large."

"At each stage of his career, Secretariat's winning times and speed figures provided objective evidence that he was an extraordinary runner. His greatest performance, of course, was the Belmont Stakes, where he dueled with Sham at a seemingly suicidal pace for three-quarters of a mile and proceeded to draw away to a 31-length victory. The prevailing track record, Gallant Man's 2:26 3/5, was considered almost unassailable; only one other winner in the Belmont's history had run faster than 2:28. When Secretariat crossed the finish line in 2:24 flat, he had raced into a new dimension."

Penny Chenery: “No, we didn’t have a spiritual connection. We had a mutual respect, but he didn’t stand still long enough for me to look in his eye and say a prayer. He was smart, and a ham. He knew when he won. And he knew when he lost.”

"But it was the mighty Kelso who owned the Jockey Club Gold Cup, run at 2 miles in those days. He notched five in a row on his way to five straight Horse of the Year titles from 1960 to 1964. Those triumphs (by a collective 28 lengths) were the equivalent of five consecutive victories in the Breeders' Cup Classic, a feat that surely will never be matched."

"You have the power to make this the most exciting fall season our sport has known in decades. Simply reverse course and become the hunter instead of the hunted. Do yourself and the sport a favor and pass up a Breeders’ Cup prep at Belmont Park and go West to take on Zenyatta on her home turf. You have nothing to lose. Although Rachel Alexandra’s fans do not want to admit this, it has become a lost season. In football terms, the clock is running down and nothing but a Hail Mary can save it."

"Patterns in the great ones are apparent, but the answers never seem to satisfy."

"Studies of running, rowing, speed skating, and swimming races have shown that human males are on average 11 percent faster than women. The gap between colts and fillies -- male and female horses younger than 4 years old -- is around 1 percent."

"There is nothing 'greyhoundish' in his make-up and his flanks are well skirted at that."

"He pulled away from the fast traveling Hoodwink as a great horse should ..." (Lawrence Realization)

On Zenyatta and the Breeders' Cup Classic: "She’s six wide and she’s going to swamp them. Twinkletoes versus treacletoes – except this formidable force of nature doesn’t look particularly dainty pounding down the lane. She brutally downs the gallant Gio Ponti and Twice Over, a pair of equine Canutes pointlessly attempting to withstand an irresistible tide."

Sports Illustrated scribe picks both for 2009 honor. "For everybody who says that thoroughbred racing cannot produce a star outside of the Triple Crown, it was a year to eat their words, and a year for history. That's why both Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta are my choices for Sportsman of the Year."

Timeform ranks Goldikova at 132, a single pound ahead of Classic victress Zenyatta at 131 and two pounds ahead of Turf winner Conduit at 130.

Racing Post rates Zenyatta at 128, one pound behind Rachel Alexandra at 129, on their list of top dirt/all-weather performers. "With two such amazing distaffers adding to the outstanding exploits of Sea The Stars and Goldikova in Europe, this has been a season the like of which will be hard to replicate."

"Next month's Breeders' Cup is in the Californian town of Arcadia, but it might have been hell for Sea The Stars, whose six-month pageant through European racing required no further embellishment ..."

"The point here is not to denigrate an admirable soon-to-be champion but to question the level of superlatives surrounding him and the seemingly different standards used to define greatness in American and European racing."

"In his lathered coat and refusal to settle early in the race, there were the faintest signs that the wonder horse's internal machinery was starting to clank and groan. But it was hard to defend that suspicion when he burst from the pack, arrow-like, and passed the lollipop two lengths in front. This was not a bloodstock deal, a betting coup or a prize-money grab. It was flesh and blood and beauty."

"Handicappers admittedly offer the one objective gauge against which new champions can be measured against the great names of the past. But they can make no allowance for the fact that different horses have different ways of showing scorn for their inferiors." The limitations of quantifying greatness.

No. 1: Regret, a truly sensational horse, winner of the Kentucky Derby in her first start as a 3YO.

Telegraph review of recently published Eclipse biography by Nicholas Clee makes the work sound as though it's a bit of modern Trollope, centered around a great horse, who was, even towards the end of his life, hard used: "In the end, even the mighty Eclipse became what can only be described as shagged out, and in the declining months of his 24-year-life was conveyed from mare to mare in what was almost certainly the first ever horsebox."

Where Curlin ranks on the list of great horses is a matter for debate (a debate we're fortunate to have)