Nevermind I'm through with this Zenyatta - Rachel debate, and in particular the RA faction to make any critique of her as to take it as personal affront to her has become too predictable and tiresome. It is especially confusing since they like to use the same tactics when criticizing Zenyatta, so what was fair for the goose was not so fair indeed.

Just because one horse might get horse of 2009 does not mean they were the better horse, either way it goes.

I do find it odd Zenyatta is being critizised for not beating anything in several of her pre classic wins, yet she beat Life is Sweet three times and I think it could be argued that Life is Sweet was as impressive as anyone in two days of races at Santa Anita.

Well, I think you'd agree that Life Is Sweet ran below form in the Clement Hirsch and Lady's Secret, not to mention was very much aided by the pace situation in the Distaff.

It's along the same lines as using Einstein's 11th place finish in the Classic as some sort of barometer.

Certainly Zenyatta dusted her on the level in the Milady. However, IMO Gomez didn't do himself any favors playing cat and mouse with Smith in that one.

Because that sort of non-critical analysis also leads one to dismiss Zenyatta beating Life is Sweet because Life is Sweet couldn't beat Anabaa's Creation in the matchup we're going to allegedly use to boost Zenyatta? So either Anabaa is that good to press Zenyatta to a dirty head to the wire AND beat Life is Sweet, or she's still not that good which is why she's a better fit for a $50K claimer. The backers need to make sense of that conundrum in short order here.If you want the Life is Sweet card all year, you also need the only-a-head-better-than-Anabaa's-Creation card in the deck too. Can't have it both ways.

Why, Nick, do you insist on ignoring Zenyatta's flat-footed start?!

That flat-footed start left her in LAST!!!! Instead of....last.....where she would have been regularly without it.

Jeez. Come on dude, after all that harping on race dynamics?! Shame on you, you should know better.

Oh brother, when will people get it, this isn't about criticizing Zenyatta. There is no lesser horse. Neither RA nor Z is less than pure excellence. It's like with the Oscars. Technically you "win" the nomination and it's an honor to be nominated,etc etc. Well you could say after that it's really crazy to pick a "better" actor per se if all 5 are supposedly brilliant and the requirements of the parts were just different. You can try to argue what was harder but it's really a mess to distinguish between levels of pure technique a lot of the time. There's a judgment call for (hopefully) one person to be recognized with a trophy and it's not a slap in the face to the ability of the other nominees. Just because you vote for Denzel doesn't mean you think Tom Hanks sucks. This is not about naming a loser.

I had many exams in school where we'd go 'well there's more than 1 right answer!' and the prof just tells you to pick the 'most right' one. Yes it's stupid and frustrating, but that's the way it is.

If you are a great horse, you are supposed to beat a weak field by open lengths. the KY Oaks and the Mother Goose were both weak fields? I forget, Rachel only won them by a nose right?

Geez Loise she shattered records in the Mother Goose.. It was her against the timer, and she kicked the timers butt!

I can.

Rachel was incredibly impressive time after time after time. Zenyatta was incredibly impressive once.

Based upon Moss pace figures, the pace of the Woodward was one of the faster routes of the year. But the kicker is she was a 3-year-old filly facing elders! That's pretty remarkable. Furthermore, in the two of the faster races to the standard route pace call, she was a winner...



Above that, pace dynamics, race shapes and flow aren't just about the fractions. It's about pressure... which was there non-stop. She wilted the competition in the Woodward. Say what you want about Macho Again and his inconsequential future starts, but he was a quality race horse at Saratoga and in good form, yet he still couldn't catch her.



I will certainly give credit where credit is due, and Zenyatta overcame some pretty insane pace scenarios in her wins this year. Many of her races were very slow early. The question there is who you are running down. Running down a weak horse with a slow pace is a lot easier than holding off a quality horse with a fast pace, in my opinion.

For the record, the Classic was very similar to last year... as Per Moss...

But I'm not about criticizing the abilities of either. I recognize both as pretty special. The arguments people are attempting to make to dispel Rachel Alexandra's year-long domination of horse racing, however, does not trump the big win for Zenyatta, in my opinion.

Using comparative handicapping and conditional results such as "If she beat him, then he should beat her and him while they beat the others" is baseless. Arguments about overall career records "need not apply." Speed figures? They don't count... two different surfaces. The fact Rachel Alexandra skipped the Classic? How is it fair to criticize synthetics in everyday handicapping but when someone uses the surface to dictate a decision, it's suddenly not?

Horse of the Year is not about who would beat whom. Does anyone think Favorite Trick would have beat Skip Away? Of course not. Horse of the Year is about recognizing the body of work for the year. And in my opinion, and it's unfortunate because truthfully, and ultimately, Zenyatta probably wins her fair share of head-to-head match-ups against Rachel, the body of work Rachel Alexandra put out this year was a notch or two better.

You have no clue how to recognize an extraordinary performance.

You still say "oh Rachel only beat Macho again by a whisker" THAT was an EXTRAordinary performance. So was Zenyatta's.. but you have proved you cant recognize an extraordinary performance.

:tro: you are right. Its like argueing with a brick wall.

What records (plural, your term) did she "shatter" in the Mother Goose? From what I can tell see, she ran 1:46.33, besting Lakeway's prior stakes record of 1:46.2. Hardly shattering. And let's keep in mind that the Belmont surface that afternoon was lightning fast. Pretty weak 7,500 claimers ran 6F in 1:09.2, and an off-the-turf maiden race saw 6F completed in 1:08.3. As Birdrun recently established at the Belmont Fall meeting, the track more often than not establishes records than the horses.

The Eclipse Awards can not be handed out soon enough.

Rachel ran a very gutsy race in the Woodward, and it was an awesome experience to be at Saratoga that afternoon. But let's not make the performance more than it was. To say that she "wilted" the competition is a gross overstatement. Da' Tara was eased in his race prior to the Woodward (was he wilted that afternoon by Le Grand Cru), so to use his result as evidence of the strength of the pace is not compelling. The only other forwardly-placed horse in the race was Past the Point who, as evidenced by his subsequent effort in the Bold Ruler, is clearly not the same horse that took Curlin to the wire in the 2008 Woodward.

Wilted is relative... she did wilt that field, but what degree of wilt is this wilting in the larger world of wilting? That's a fair debate, but is minor in the bigger Horse of the Year debate.

Name the last horse to run with Rachel and live to tell about it? Is Big Drama or was Big Drama quick enough.. Even wonder colt lol Summer Bird was left for dead in the Haskel .. Because Rachel is HoY doesn't mean she is necessarily better then Zenyatta it just means her total years accomplishments are superior to the efforts of Zenyatta.. I have really no clue which one is better? To me Rachel SEEMS faster SEEMS better..

So the horses on the pace were bad, which means she should have set a very fast pace and buried them. Then the horses who were closing are also bad so she should have been able to hold them off easily.

Those are high expectations for a 3YO filly who had been tested on multiple occasions and was facing older horses for the first time.

NT

Just so words aren't put in my mouth, I'll give you my recap of the race: Rachel set a rapid (not suicidal, as has been described) pace. Calvin chose to put her on the pace and out in the 2-3 path rather than taking back and getting boxed (as many people before the race thought Past the Point was likely to be a "dead send" from the outside post, as he was in last year's Woodward, and if Borel rated, Rachel could end up a marked horse like Ginger Punch was in the 2008 Go For Wand). She faced steady pressure to her inside from a weak race horse in Da' Tara for about five furlongs. When Da' Tara gave way, Rachel was hounded by Past the Point, but hard, head-to-head pressure from that rival never materialized. She shook loose on the turn and held off a determined challenge from an in-form closer in Macho Again (no world beater, but a legitimate Grade II type) under steady pressure in a very gutsy effort.

She was clearly the best horse in the Woodward, as she was in all her races this year and is a future Hall of Famer, but the attempts by some to elevate the Woodward performance to some kind of other-worldly performance, IMO, are wrong. Efforts of that caliber in this race belong to horses such as Holy Bull, Formal Gold and Ghostzapper. When trying to compare great performances in an historic race, I don't think "for a filly" is the standard. (And just so no one thinks I'm Rachel-bashing, while Zenyatta's win in the Classic was an outstanding performance by a terrific mare, it pales in comparison to the Breeders' Cup Classic performances of horses like Ghostzapper, Ferdinand, Sunday Silence, Awesome Again and the 3YO Tiznow.)

Not that it's her fault, because she can only run against those that line up in the gate against her, but Rachel never competed in a race where one of her rivals was a quality speed horse that could go a route of ground. (Big Drama certainly doesn't fit that bill, and his pre-race antics at Pimlico only hurt his cause further.) I have always wondered what the outcome of the Woodward would have been had Nick Zito's entry in the Woodward been Commentator rather than Da' Tara. (Yes, I know he was retired by that point, but he's the type of horse that I'm thinking of.)