New York Times has a simulation of Zenyatta running against 9 great racehourses: Ruffian, Barbaro, Cigar, Affirmed, Seabiscuit, Smarty Jones, Rachel Alexandra, Citation, Big Brown.
It’s a hoot!
See who wins.
http://therail.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/zenyatta-vs-citation-watch-for-yourself/?ref=sports
How could they leave Secretariat out? And wtf on Ruffian - did she teleport out or something?
But fun - thanks for sharing!
Very cool…though I think whoever wrote this race has a bias towards Zenyatta! You can’t convince me that Ruffian would finish 6th behind her. 
I have some questions about horse selection. :lol:
But yes, fun nonetheless! Reminds me somewhat of the “Field of dreams” painting, which I have a print of hanging over my couch- there have been a few horses I’ve wanted to insert into the race since I purchased the print many years ago.
Spectacular Bid and Secretariat??? Not around or what.
Its a simulation…not a real race…there are hundreds of spectacular race horses over the years…this is just a handful and ONlY a simulation 
Im sure you could go make another with the horses you preffered to see
Innocent enough I suppose.
Still its frankly an insult to a lot of Hall of Fame runners (with the outcome") that only a recent fan would make.
If this year’s BCC even touches near a race time of 2:00 for 1 1/4 mi I’ll be shocked.
Secretariat still holds the Churchill Downs track record for the distance at 1:59.4; Spectacular Bid shaved 2 seconds off that distance on the Santa Anita surface to get 1:57 4/5; he also holds the Santa Anita record for 7 furlongs at 1:20
While highly beloved Zenyatta holds no track or stakes records to her name.
Wow, not only did they bring horses back from the dead but they also moved Pimlico out of the ghetto and put it in the mountains somewhere! Good thing we really don’t have an infield pond at Pimlico or they would be fishing drunks out of it non-stop on Preakness day. I wish the grandstand looked like that.
[QUOTE=caryledee;5199006]
Very cool…though I think whoever wrote this race has a bias towards Zenyatta! You can’t convince me that Ruffian would finish 6th behind her. :)[/QUOTE]
To be honest, espeically at a longer race, I doubt Ruffian would have been that close–she ran out front and that gets them in the end with fast closers, and nobody does fast closing like Z. And what the heck are Rachel, Smarty, Big Brown and Barbaro doing in company with Affirmed, Citation, and Seabiscuit? Half of this field is not like the other half…
(And honestly, in a race at even weights with that crowd plus more deserving greats like Man o’ War, Secretariat, War Admiral, Spectacular Bid, etc…my prediction would be a fast-closing Zenyatta 3rd or close for third with Secretariat, with Man o’ War and Citation in front. I honestly don’t think on a modern, high-quality surface that you could have stopped Man o’ War with anything short of tying an anvil to his back. Citation, meanwhile, as an older, injured horse carrying 130 still was only beaten by a whisker by a horse carrying something like fifteen pounds less, again over surfaces not equal to what we have today. They were near-impossible to beat in non-ideal conditions, I think either would be borderline-impossible to stop in a perfect one.)
Though if they want to make another, how about front-running speed-duel fillies–Rachel v. Ruffian match race. (I think Ruffian would smoke her.)
And what the heck are Rachel, Smarty, Big Brown and Barbaro doing in company with Affirmed, Citation, and Seabiscuit? Half of this field is not like the other half…
Yeah, I was “handicapping” and saying, “Throw her out, throw him out, throw him out, throw him out …” as I saw the field.
I respectfully disagree. Ruffian won the CCA Oaks at a mile and a half and equaled the stakes record without ever being touched with a whip. She would have had another gear when the closers came closing.
But what was her time compared to males? Especially the great ones in the hypothetical?
And of course that assumes Ruffian just didn’t break down being pushed by top horses (as, well, really happened). It was always a kind of silver lining she didn’t live to be bred with those ankles, and something of a shame her sire ever did.
I certainly don’t want to second guess Ruffian.
Here are her past-performances
Worth noting is that her highest weight assignment was 122-lbs.
If she raced at 3-yrs in the BCC she would’ve been assigned 122-lbs LESS the filly/mare allowance of 3-lbs, so just 119-lbs. (Zenyatta will tote 126-lbs given to any horse 4-yrs old and up, LESS 3-lbs, so 123-lbs)
Ruffian ran the Mother Goose Stakes (at 1 1/8mi) in 1:47.80 while Rachel Alexandra broke the Stakes record for the race setting the time of 1:46:33
As to why people think Citation was somehow “slow” or not a hungry runner is simply astonishing. He broke a track record at 2 and had just 1 loss that year to a filly, his stablemate, who broke the track record. (Plus under Calumet rules a jockey couldn’t overtake another Calumet horse if that horse was in the lead at the final turn.) He started his 3-yr old season defeating a 6-yr old handicap horse, matched 2 track records, was given a walk over, and won the triple crown with an extra race in between the Preakness and Belmont! Plus he has a 15-0 streak was held by him which in that era was amazing. At the end of that season he had a career record of 29 27-2-0. Amazing.
I honestly think Citation would be dueling with Man o’ War in an even-weights contest with the other greats (and am one of the small but rather vocal group who rates him as the #1 Triple Crown winner of all time on lifetime achievement grounds.) I don’t know he could actually beat the original Big Red, but I do think he could beat pretty much all other comers and the wire would be a very close thing. Probably the most inexplicably underrated racehorse of the last century.
And I think it’s another case of Ruffian being a horse where you had to be there, as nothing about her record makes me think she could keep up with the greatest of all time (and hey, I think Queen Z would come in behind Citation, Man o’ War and probably Secretariat, too.) She didn’t race males (except once, one male, and broke down, which suggests to me she would not have held up to being pushed by male competition. Again, thats the fault of the people who opted not to relieve her sire of two extraneous body parts, not her.) Of course in my ideal race, everyone carries the same weight and it’s run at minimum 1 1/4". I don’t think that would be a problem for any on their hypothetical except Rachel, though the weight (not distance) might be an issue for Ruffian.
And I would love to hear the justification of the simulation creators for including Big Brown, Barbaro, and Smarty Jones. (Smarty Jones? Really? And is that Big Brown with or without steroids?)
[QUOTE=danceronice;5202133]
And I would love to hear the justification of the simulation creators for including Big Brown, Barbaro, and Smarty Jones. (Smarty Jones? Really? And is that Big Brown with or without steroids?)[/QUOTE]
Popularity. Pure and simple. All the horse named are either very well known to modern fans or in the case of Seabiscuit and Citation “those old horses”. More odd is the inclusion of Affirmed and Cigar, both of which are likely only marginally known at best to fans of Big Brown.
Zenyatta, Seabiscuit, Cigar, Rachel Alexandra, Big Brown, Barbaro, Ruffian, Smarty Jones, Citation and Affirmed.
I think the old timers would love to see someday up in that big track in the sky an afternoon race of Stymie, Exterminator, Man O’War, Colin, Native Dancer, Citation and heck lets toss in John Henry and Silky Sullivan
What always struck me about the great Colin was his trainer, James G. Rowe, Sr., and his only wish to have put on his tombstone: “he trained Colin”.
That alone truly said a lot about Colin as Rowe had been the US leading jockey for 1871 -1873, then got into the training side. He also trained KY Derby winners Hindoo and Regret as well as Miss Woodford, Sysonby, Peter Pan and Whisk Broom II. He was one of the greatest trainers in US history.
I have a puzzle I found at an antique store (at home, so I don’t have access to it this instant) by Sam Savitt, and it’s kind of sad how many of the geniunely great horses depicted as the greats of horse racing would be totally unfamiliar to people today. 
I would line up to see that race. (And my money would still be on Man o’ War.)
But MOW would be the favorite. I’d take Exterminator at anything over 4-1. :lol:
It’s funny how rabid racing fans get about these hypothetical match ups. We do it every day and I’m as guilty as the next sap, of course, but it still amuses me. In the Field of Dreams print, I’ve often wondered why Bid was left out but Jim Dandy is back there playing caboose… shrug.
Back to handicapping the really real live races of the upcoming days!
Well, don’t all sports have the “what if so and so could meet up with ol’ whassisname” fantasy competitions? Now we have computers and we can make up our own matches!
(And you know it’s only a matter of time, money, and access before SOMEONE figures out how to clone replicas…)
[QUOTE=Glimmerglass;5199167]
If this year’s BCC even touches near a race time of 2:00 for 1 1/4 mi I’ll be shocked.[/QUOTE]
Final time for the 2010 BCC on a fast track was a pedestrian 2:02.28
[QUOTE=Glimmerglass;5199167]
While highly beloved Zenyatta holds no track or stakes records to her name.[/QUOTE]
Glimmerglass, is her Wiki page wrong then?? It says she holds 3 Stakes records and 1 track record.
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