[QUOTE=vineyridge;4196180]
Why wouldn’t Belmont put up some extra purse money for the Ruffian if they could get a RA-Zenyatta hook up?[/QUOTE]
Per NYRA Chief Executive Charles Hayward they don’t as a rule sweeten the pot to entice runners. However they are reviewing the matter, as I suspect that have with other runners, and could up the ante. The problem would be just as it is for any track - that money comes at the expense of the smaller trainers by way of depriving perhaps dozens and dozens of races an extra $5k towards each races purse.
You know what track could suddenly appear as a showdown setting: Hawthorne Race Course. It’s midway for both horses geographically, its on dirt, it plays fast, and with the exhaustion of almost all appeals by the casinos the track is to receive north of $18 million that’s been held in escrow. With that much money they could offer a mega-sized purse and hype up a big league match race of sorts.
As much as I too like the big show you have to hope the big players will agree to it for reasons of sportsmanship vs. the raw money.
Jess Jackson was rightfully bashed last year for pulling Curlin off the track after the BCC when he said there were no more races of the right prestige and purse. That was to me a slap in the face to a struggling Churchill Downs who treated him and Curlin like kings and wanted him to race in the Grade 2 Clark Handicap. He could’ve won that race, helped out CD, sent him out a hero and regained some of the tarnished record.
Maybe lessons have been learned? Who knows.
If circumstances are just such that Zenyatta doesn’t race Rachel Alexandra it won’t hurt RA’s reputation. She has set five stakes records already, defeated the best of her male counterparts, will take on males again plus older females, etc. If that doesn’t elevate her above the average I don’t know what does.
Further I think that Miss Isella (age 4) might just become the next big older female running star.
