I bet after yesterday Zenyatta is retired to the broodmare life.
That does seem to be the consensus. Would have been great to see a match race…
I agree w/ those of the opinion that Rachel should be horse of the year. This is NOT to belittle Zenyatta’s amaaaazing race yesterday - but Rachel did more, under more pressure.
Too bad they both can’t win though!
What an exciting race, well ridden by Mike Smith. Zenyatta certainly showed her stuff. It will be interesting to see what they do with her now.
Good to hear Quality Road is okay. It was a good Breeders Cup this year - no tragedies!
Just watched the attempted loading… wow, that always freaks me out to see a horse so distressed. And it throws off everything, and it’s just luck paired with some cool heads to put that situation of getting the race back to functional.
Regarding HOTY- has it ever been given to a horse that didn’t race at a “classic” distance (as in 10 Furlongs)?
I’ve been too busy to pay any attention to racing this year, but I happened to be flipping through channels when I got home from the barn yesterday and saw the breeder’s cup broadcast about 15 minutes from post time. Boy am I glad I did. What a showman (woman) that filly is. All I knew of her was what they had discussed on tv and I was already pulling for her. Great, great race especially after the gate nightmare. Boyfriend walked into the room and said, “why are you yelling get him out, take the blindfold off!! what are you talking about?”.
I would love to have the offspring of a horse with a personality that big.
I feel as did HRTV’s review last night, that ZEnyatta did much more to deserve horse of the year. She ran and WON two back to back championships races, the Ladies classic last year, then the classic this year, against the boys, making history, and also beat Personal Ensigns record of 14 consecutive wins, retiring undefeated. What more could a horse do? She MORE THAN deserves the accolade. Rachel Alexander is good, but she didn’t even show up for the BC, which IS the Champion of Champions race. I would have been more “on her side” if she had shown up and won the Ladies classic at least. But Zenyatta has out done her.
[QUOTE=War Admiral;4487042]
That does seem to be the consensus. Would have been great to see a match race…
I agree w/ those of the opinion that Rachel should be horse of the year. This is NOT to belittle Zenyatta’s amaaaazing race yesterday - but Rachel did more, under more pressure.
Too bad they both can’t win though![/QUOTE]
Why couldn’t they share the title???
I think Rachel did more over the course of the year, which in no way diminishes what Zenyatta pulled off. She’s a great mare.
But as we all know, it’s always the Classic that decides HOY.
Any word yet from CA how Zenyatta looks this morning?
She sure didn’t look tired yesterday and looked like she has a great sense of humor to make the boys think they could beat her.
I don’t know if they could or not; it’s never been done but I think the unique circumstances of this year surely warrant a departure from the norm. Certainly they both deserve it and it’s a tough call. It would almost make more sense to just call this “The Year of the Fillies” and have both of them win it.
[QUOTE=mem;4487050]
Regarding HOTY- has it ever been given to a horse that didn’t race at a “classic” distance (as in 10 Furlongs)?[/QUOTE]
Azeri in 2002.
I’m still in favor of RA.
Zenyatta is a magnificent monster racehorse. She ran a spectacular race yesterday, no question. She beat the world’s best at a mile and a quarter.
BUT
She never traveled as did all the world’s best who met her. She was running on her home surface, and none of the others were synthetic specialists. She hasn’t won in the mud.
RA traveled hither and yon, won in amazing times, over all kinds of surfaces, and is also undefeated this year against the best competition, male and female, of this year and her age.
While it’s close in my mind, Zenyatta is still a California horse running on California synthetics and that makes all the difference in the world to me.
In short, Zenyatta, except for running against males for the first time and stretching the distance, has never left her comfort zone.
Quality Road update:
(from Bloodhorse)
http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/53355/quality-road-has-only-minor-cuts
I love them both but Zenyatta should be HOTY!!! RA had a tougher year but Zenyatta is the better horse IMO. She was amazing and she didn’t even look like she was trying. I don’t think it would have mattered what the surface or where it was she would win… It was even mentioned by Shirreffs that she would like dirt better… SHE ROCKS!!!
[QUOTE=VirginiaBred;4487261]
Well she’s a five year old that beat the best three year olds vs a three year old that beat other three year olds.[/QUOTE]
Um, both beat older this year.
Tongue action?
Something else is in her mouth besides the D ring. Is it a tongue tie down?
You think she likes running last because she likes looking at the boys’ butts? “Oh, you silly boys- thinking you can outrun me. I’ll just stay back here though because I don’t mind this view!”
It will be interesting to see what stallions get to breed these two amazing girls.
What boys are at the top of the most successful sires list these days?
Seriously.
Ok. Seriously. Let’s compare campaigns here.
Zenyatta:
At 5: Milady (same race as her 4 year old campaign)GRADE II!,lady’s secret grI (Same race as last year), Clement Hirsch GrI(same as last year), vanity grI (same as last year), BCC grI (a longer distance than she has ever won at)
THIS year Zenyatta has not left California an only faced males once. These include KY derby winner (lost to RA, and lost WV derby GrII), Summer Bird, belmont and travers winner, (lost to RA), Regal ransom (last win was a GrII), Gio Ponti (turf horse switching to synthetics), several euro shippers the best who failed to shoot (as did most euros all weekend), And all of this on her very own home track, great yes.
RA:
At 3: Started out in Martha Washington in early spring, then 2 grII’s fantasy/fair grounds oaks. Kentucky Oaks, GrI (won by +5 lengths, granted, less than stellar competition), Preakness stakes, grI, (beating ky derby winner among others while switching tracks and going longer), haskell stakes grI (different track beating belmont winner), Mother Goose Stakes, grI (new track) Woodward Stakes (older males, beating Macho Again, among others also new track) Included in this of course are class upgrades almost every race, including facing the boys THREE times, all in prestigious races at several different tracks, note there was also a trainer/owner/barn change after the Ky oaks.
Really, I think it comes down to campaign in the current year and level of difficulty, yes, both faced washed up fillies that were clearly out of their league, however, it is my opinion that RA stepped up more than Zenyatta. She faced males three times, even winning a triple crown jewel. Although the BCC will go down as one of the greatest, Zenyatta faced males as a 5 year old on her own home track ONCE. If she had continued to step up throughout the year, yes, I could have given it to her. Remember, that it is not all about the breeder’s cup races- curlin got 4th last year and was still HOTY. Another point to add was that RA started her campaign early in the year, and zenyatta started quite late.
