Wise Dan and the Question the Turf Still Asks About Greatness

America's Best Racing revisits Wise Dan this week, opening with a question that racing people ask about every great one: what actually makes a champion. The piece takes his name as the starting point for weighing talent against the other qualities that separate a merely gifted runner from one the sport remembers. It's less a recap of times and purses than an argument for what "champion" ought to mean on the American turf. Readers are left with the question more than the answer, which is fitting for a horse whose case for greatness never needed much argument.

With reporting from America's Best Racing.