On Saturday at Gulfstream there is no shortage of quality racing! From competitive Maiden fields up to the Grade 1 Florida Derby the card looks stellar. While most people will be keeping their eye on the Derby, I will be paying utmost attention to the Rampart Stakes. Bambera the Super horse from South America will be making her U.S. debut. The 8-1 odds on the morning line look pretty juicy if she fires her best shot first time out, and assuming she is not heavily bet down. Based on her past performances and lifetime record we may be looking at the female version of Invasor. If that is the case, then let us hope that Bambera romps in the Rampart and then goes looking for Zenyatta in the Apple Blossom. That April 9th race just may be a face-off between the two best female horses in the world anyhow!
1st - Bambera
2nd - Unrivaled Belle
3rd - Miss Singhsix, Don't Forget Gil
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Tyler Baze and Vic Stauffer
Saw in the DRF that Tyler Baze just replaced his former agent with Vic Stauffer. Here is to hoping that Vic can help Tyler win multiple riding titles. Best of luck to both of you in this endeavor.
Rachel Alexandra Loses
The loud thud that could be heard around every racetrack on Saturday afternoon was the sound of Rachel Alexandra's exceedingly and excessively large reputation crashing to the earth. The sonic boom you heard shortly after was the sound of Zenyatta's reputation blasting off into the stratosphere. It was powered by the legions of fans who continue to adore her and the sure to be infinite numbers of fans jumping on the big mare's band wagon. Take nothing away from Rachel Alexandra, she is still a truly good racehorse and has accomplished more in her starts than just about any other horse will be expected to accomplish in a lifetime of races. But Beyer numbers, synthetic tracks, and eclipse award voters be damned, the number one thoroughbred in all the land she is not! The top Thoroughbred in the world is 15-0 Zenyatta!
Of course there will still be those inclined to split hairs and argue that Rachel is the better horse because she won prestigious races at prestigious tracks over “real” prestigious dirt. Yet, that same super horse who was the next coming of Seabiscuit, War Admiral, Ruffian, and Secretariat all rolled into one, lost a very un-prestigious race designed solely for her appearance, over a very real dirt surface after her very prestigious owner and trainerer had made a “timely” decision to give the filly a rest. To make matters worse she lost to a horse that has never won a Grade 1 or even Group 1 race in her career. To top it all off Rachel lost to perhaps the third best horse in the barn of John Sherrifs, the trainer of both Zenyatta and at the time Life is Sweet. Yes, the Rachel camp will notice that Zardana is undefeated on Dirt. So what? The fact that Zardana was on dirt did not somehow slow down Rachel Alexandra. Yes she made a nice kick to keep the race close, but the race was decided at the top of the stretch.
Now certainly almost any horse coming off a layoff is entitled to need a race. But a returning horse of the year, as Steven Crist recently pointed out, has not lost their comeback race since Ferdinand in 1988. It had been 22 years since a returning Horse of the Year lost their comeback race before Saturday afternoon. 13 of those horses were retired after winning horse of the year, meaning that only 9 horses in those 22 years had successfully returned and won. But nonetheless this tells us that a returning Horse of the Year champion is not just any other horse returning from a layoff. Interestingly a comparison of the last two female Horses of the Year shows quite a different story, Lady Secret returned in 1987 as the horse of the year and started her final season with a conspicuous 6th place finish in the Donn Handicap, while in 2003 Azeri, the then reigning Horse of the Year, returned to win none other than the Apple Blossom. Whether Rachel Alexandra will follow up with a year like Lady Secret had or a year like Azeri remains to be determined.
It may not be that Rachel Alexandra has lost a step at all. It could simply be that she is in the hands of an inept owner and a trainer willing to listen to that owner lest he be fired. Rachel Alexandra had last been seen in a competitive race in September of last year. After that race Jess Jackson proclaimed that he was giving Rachel a break. At the time Mr. Jackson cited the fact that Rachel ran more times by the end of her three year old season then Zenyatta had run in her three seasons combined. Perhaps, Jess Jackson was unknowingly explaining to himself that he had run Rachel off her own feet. Did that final dog fight with Macho Again in the Woodward after a torrid pace take something away from Rachel? Or is that the decidedly non designed 7 months on the sidelines left her less than desirous to charge out of the gate again? Or could it be that win master, and multiple eclipse awards winning, Steve Assmussen really did fail to get Rachel Alexandra ready to run? Either way the line about the weather in Louisiana sounds more like an excuse than a reason. After all, their collective brain trust is the one that took Rachel to the Fair Grounds to winter. I hear Southern California has great weather this time of year!
If in fact Rachel does not impress us as she did last year it should not come as any surprise to those in the thoroughbred business. Over the years a number of fillies and mares, and to a certain extent colts and horses, have followed up powerhouse seasons with a series of unexplainable duds. Such as the aforementioned Lady's Secret bringing up the rear in her final race after a less than stellar year, Stardom Bound in her recent lackluster efforts, or any other number of great fillies and mares who woke up slightly slower one day. Whether these fillies and mares have grown tired of the intrinsic exercise of chasing other horses, or simply developed that natural desire to be a mommy we do not know, but a good number of top class fillies only reign for so long. The lucky ones are retired before their aura shrinks away. With all that said, it is all the more reason why seeing Zenyatta fire race after race, month after month, and year after year is truly something special. If Zenyatta has woken up one morning and given any indication she did not want to run it is news to me and likely news to anyone else not named John Sherrifs or Jerry and Ann Moss. By all indications it is quite the opposite. Even Mike Smith, who has ridden some fillies and mares for the ages, is on record saying that 6 year old Zenyatta may be a better version of herself. Thus far, the four year version of Rachel Alexandra has left us asking if she in fact will be better.
Finally, the racing year in 2010 is still quite young and any talk of horse of the year would be premature at best, but a little hypothetical can be good for the soul still wounded by the 2009 Horse of the year vote. Even for the Mark McGwire’s among us who don’t want to talk about the past, it can be useful in stopping future travesties. If a poll of voters for horse of the year were taken today or last Sunday how many votes do you think Rachel Alexandra would get? The answer is likely somewhere around zero. How many votes do you think Zenyatta would get? Sure it’s probably not a landslide, but by any rational count she likely would get more than 1. Yet, both horses have run only once since the last vote for horse of the year was taken, and despite a brief retirement by Zenyatta, both horse remain in training and have run once since the last vote. Boy what a difference a day makes! The real question now is can Zenyatta ride this one day to an even bigger year and capture the one thing she can't take on the track? While last Saturday showed us just how mortal champion horses are, it also showed us just how invincible a truly great racehorse can be. Horse of the year are voted for, but true legendaries need no vote to be determined.
Of course there will still be those inclined to split hairs and argue that Rachel is the better horse because she won prestigious races at prestigious tracks over “real” prestigious dirt. Yet, that same super horse who was the next coming of Seabiscuit, War Admiral, Ruffian, and Secretariat all rolled into one, lost a very un-prestigious race designed solely for her appearance, over a very real dirt surface after her very prestigious owner and trainerer had made a “timely” decision to give the filly a rest. To make matters worse she lost to a horse that has never won a Grade 1 or even Group 1 race in her career. To top it all off Rachel lost to perhaps the third best horse in the barn of John Sherrifs, the trainer of both Zenyatta and at the time Life is Sweet. Yes, the Rachel camp will notice that Zardana is undefeated on Dirt. So what? The fact that Zardana was on dirt did not somehow slow down Rachel Alexandra. Yes she made a nice kick to keep the race close, but the race was decided at the top of the stretch.
Now certainly almost any horse coming off a layoff is entitled to need a race. But a returning horse of the year, as Steven Crist recently pointed out, has not lost their comeback race since Ferdinand in 1988. It had been 22 years since a returning Horse of the Year lost their comeback race before Saturday afternoon. 13 of those horses were retired after winning horse of the year, meaning that only 9 horses in those 22 years had successfully returned and won. But nonetheless this tells us that a returning Horse of the Year champion is not just any other horse returning from a layoff. Interestingly a comparison of the last two female Horses of the Year shows quite a different story, Lady Secret returned in 1987 as the horse of the year and started her final season with a conspicuous 6th place finish in the Donn Handicap, while in 2003 Azeri, the then reigning Horse of the Year, returned to win none other than the Apple Blossom. Whether Rachel Alexandra will follow up with a year like Lady Secret had or a year like Azeri remains to be determined.
It may not be that Rachel Alexandra has lost a step at all. It could simply be that she is in the hands of an inept owner and a trainer willing to listen to that owner lest he be fired. Rachel Alexandra had last been seen in a competitive race in September of last year. After that race Jess Jackson proclaimed that he was giving Rachel a break. At the time Mr. Jackson cited the fact that Rachel ran more times by the end of her three year old season then Zenyatta had run in her three seasons combined. Perhaps, Jess Jackson was unknowingly explaining to himself that he had run Rachel off her own feet. Did that final dog fight with Macho Again in the Woodward after a torrid pace take something away from Rachel? Or is that the decidedly non designed 7 months on the sidelines left her less than desirous to charge out of the gate again? Or could it be that win master, and multiple eclipse awards winning, Steve Assmussen really did fail to get Rachel Alexandra ready to run? Either way the line about the weather in Louisiana sounds more like an excuse than a reason. After all, their collective brain trust is the one that took Rachel to the Fair Grounds to winter. I hear Southern California has great weather this time of year!
If in fact Rachel does not impress us as she did last year it should not come as any surprise to those in the thoroughbred business. Over the years a number of fillies and mares, and to a certain extent colts and horses, have followed up powerhouse seasons with a series of unexplainable duds. Such as the aforementioned Lady's Secret bringing up the rear in her final race after a less than stellar year, Stardom Bound in her recent lackluster efforts, or any other number of great fillies and mares who woke up slightly slower one day. Whether these fillies and mares have grown tired of the intrinsic exercise of chasing other horses, or simply developed that natural desire to be a mommy we do not know, but a good number of top class fillies only reign for so long. The lucky ones are retired before their aura shrinks away. With all that said, it is all the more reason why seeing Zenyatta fire race after race, month after month, and year after year is truly something special. If Zenyatta has woken up one morning and given any indication she did not want to run it is news to me and likely news to anyone else not named John Sherrifs or Jerry and Ann Moss. By all indications it is quite the opposite. Even Mike Smith, who has ridden some fillies and mares for the ages, is on record saying that 6 year old Zenyatta may be a better version of herself. Thus far, the four year version of Rachel Alexandra has left us asking if she in fact will be better.
Finally, the racing year in 2010 is still quite young and any talk of horse of the year would be premature at best, but a little hypothetical can be good for the soul still wounded by the 2009 Horse of the year vote. Even for the Mark McGwire’s among us who don’t want to talk about the past, it can be useful in stopping future travesties. If a poll of voters for horse of the year were taken today or last Sunday how many votes do you think Rachel Alexandra would get? The answer is likely somewhere around zero. How many votes do you think Zenyatta would get? Sure it’s probably not a landslide, but by any rational count she likely would get more than 1. Yet, both horses have run only once since the last vote for horse of the year was taken, and despite a brief retirement by Zenyatta, both horse remain in training and have run once since the last vote. Boy what a difference a day makes! The real question now is can Zenyatta ride this one day to an even bigger year and capture the one thing she can't take on the track? While last Saturday showed us just how mortal champion horses are, it also showed us just how invincible a truly great racehorse can be. Horse of the year are voted for, but true legendaries need no vote to be determined.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
