I’ve read some rather ridiculous posts over the years (and especially yesterday) regarding the great mare. Let me reiterate a few things I’ve been saying for the past several years. Number one: she has always had the great misfortune of running on synthetic tracks, tracks that rob brilliant horses of such brilliance, and level the playing field so that 50K claimers go head to head with Grade I stakes horses. Not her fault. We’ve seen this time and time again in the synthetic world. In the future the synthetic era will have been a mere footnote in the history of thoroughbred racing while been seen as a severely limiting factor in the performance of a racehorse.
To reference her great “rival” Rachel, if Rachel had performed over synthetic tracks, you’d never have heard of her. Still Zenyatta was able to maintain a perfect record over those strange, performance robbing surfaces at various distances and over varying levels of competition. She’s simply much better on dirt as I’ve always stated, and maybe you all can see that now. She wins by a noses on synthetics and open lengths on dirt. Yesterday’s Apple Blossom was nothing more than a workout for her, she did everything on her own and has not even close to the bottom of her talent. Hopefully, her connections will continue to be aggressive in their spotting of her, and this year\'s BC Classic on dirt at Churchill is again her ultimate goal, and that sounds really exciting to me.
Number Two: I realize the pure numbers people detract from talent because she doesn’t run the fastest numbers of all time – OK, as I’ve said, no horse could ever run that fast on a synthetic track, nor could the numbers given out on synthetic tracks ever be considered to have to the same accuracy as dirt numbers; even with that said, has there has never been a horse in the history of sheet making who maintained her kind of numbers, mostly negative, over four years straight, has there? Someone do the research? Am I correct? That alone should be evidence of her greatness.That she has maintained her consistency even as a 6 year old in an age where great horses are regularly washed up at 3 or 4, and has now tied the longest winning streak of Citation and Cigar only adds to her glory.
In the end there are no words or even numbers to describe her, and there has never been any serious competition for her either, from either sex. She is a once in a lifetime horse, up there with any all time great thoroughbred you wish to name in the history of racing. We’ll never see anything like her ever again in our lifetimes. If you can\'t enjoy her, you\'ve been in the wrong game because it simply doesn\'t get any better than this.
