have you heard the story of Meisha Doto? It's not a story horsefags tell lightly.
Meisha Doto ran against TM Opera O 6 times and lost 5 of them mostly coming in second place over and over. She won in their final encounter which incidentally was his only G1 victory.
However the horse itself was very cheap almost 1/50 of the standard price for racehorses of that caliber so the owner was very pleased.