DeRosa: Flightline's legacy is the 'devastating ease' of his wins

It's been 9 days since Flightline capped an undefeated career with one of the most impressive Breeders' Cup performances in the 39-year history of the storied event.

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Since then, Flightline has retired, had a share (2.5 percent) sold on a $184 million valuation, announced with a $200,000 stud fee, and had his place in the history of the turf debated ad nauseum.

I promised myself I'd wait on the historical comparisons. He's certainly worthy of them, but there's just something about enjoying the moment with a horse like this that I worried comparing him to Secretariat might bastardize.

And a key word when talking about Flightline is "moment." Not because of the brevity of his career, but because of the brevity in which he dispatched his competition.

This. Horse. Never. Faced. A. Challenge.

Unless you count those of his own doing like not breaking from the starting gate all that well. But "when the real running started" as The Saratoga Special's Tom Law is prone to say, the race was over in a moment.

I'm reminded of another term that I borrowed from the GOAT Tom Durkin for the headline: Devastating Ease. That was how Durkin described Cigar's 1996 Donn Handicap win (thank you Jason Beem for refreshing my memory on that). It could easily be used to describe how he won each of his six races.

Is he better than Ghostzapper or Cigar or Spectacular Bid or Secretariat? I do have my thoughts on that, but for now I'm happy just knowing that I saw something we're very unlikely to ever see again. Horses rarely win like this. And Flightline did. Every time.