Okay, look.

[TGJB]

I was going to stay out of this, but I\'m kind of amazed at this discussion.

Even leaving aside the question of ability and sticking to accomplishment, which is what HOY should be based on, if Zenyatta gets HOY, it will be based on ONE race, on a specialized surface. Yes, she\'s a great mare. But before the BC she had done absolutely nothing of note this year, beating up on the same small FM fields in her own backyard. In this one she beat grass horses, synth specialists and out of their element dirt horses at a game she is very good at. She gets credit for beating colts-- but that\'s it. Maybe some years that would be a HOY campaign, but...

Rachel went everywhere and beat all comers. Record breaking Oaks, a TC win, and she was both a THREE YEAR OLD AND A FILLY against colts in the Woodward.

HOY? Don\'t be silly. Rachel had arguably the greatest campaign any filly has ever had. And that\'s no knock on Zenyatta.

And by the way, \"Wide Mikey\" won this one-- that was a great ride.

[P-Dub]

Jerry,

OK, I\'ll be the first.

Good points, but some things don\'t quite ring true.

Rachel didn\'t go \"everywhere and beat all comers\". If that were true, she would have been there Saturday. Rachel has raced on synthetics and won before. Her owner was still pouting over Curlin last year. The Woodward was 2 months before the BC.

I\'m not going to rehash my arguments on the other stuff.

Its not silly to consider Zenyatta for HOY. If it is, there were a whole lot of trainers, jockeys, and others that were being \"silly\" yesterday. These people, who are around horses 365 days a year, seem to think otherwise.

[richiebee]

Undefeated campaign with numerous G1s plus victory in the BC Classic equals my
vote for HOY (if I had one).

Best campaigns by female runner ever (my opinion):

1) 1983: All Along (wins 4 Grade 1 stakes v males in 6 week period).

2) 1980: Genuine Risk (wins KY Derby, hits the board in Preakness and Belmont).

Rachel made her bones with a blowout Kentucky Oaks against some fairly average
fillies. She also drilled some pretty average 3YO colts and never faced the 2 3YOs
generally considered to be fastest, Jimbo\'s future entry of I Want Revenge and
Quality Road.

As for RA\'s Woodward victory, I look at it the other way: In any other year, this
would have been good enough for RA to win HOY.

[girly]

I think when all the excitement dies down, and they look back at the year, Rachel will get HOY. I don\'t think I\'ve ever seen a performance like she did in the Woodward.

[JimP]

Maybe when all is said and done the HOY will go to Rachel Alexandra, but to say that it is silly to give some consideration to Zenyatta for that award, is ... well, just silly.

[MO]

IMO, Rachel gets HOY hands down.

IMO, it would be an understatement to say that Zen\'s \"dance steps\" and \"body language\" pre and post race were absolutely beautiful (and a \"tell\" as to what was about to happen) - and IMO think that has a lot to do with the outpouring of support for Zen being HOY. The memory of her BCC is fresh, while the memory of what RA did this year is fading a bit.

The game certainly has changed since I got in it in \'87. Never thought I\'d see the day where the 2 best horses in America were fillies. Too bad we\'ll never see these 2 hook up..........

[jimbo66]

P-Dub,

I know you are in your glory, as you and several others have loved Zenyatta all year long, and you also have a right to be pleased that Smith gave this horse a great trip, after getting abused here (and elsewhere) for a long time.

But your objectivity seems to have gone by the wayside.  If I wanted to spend the time now to search the threads here, even you were unhappy about the path Shirreffs took this year, before the Breeders Cup.  

Rachel had an extremely ambitious campaign.  Period.  Name another filly that ever campaigned like she did this year.  Saying she beat weak 3 year old colts is borderline ridiculous and incredulous.  Summer Bird is one of the best 3 year olds of the last 5 years.  He has run negative 3\'s and 4\'s.  Coincidence that when he ran against Rachel, he looked ordinary?  He didn\'t like the wet track?  Wrong, He ran a negative 4 on the wet track.  The connections were clear from the beginning, they would do anything, but run on plastic.  Kudos to Jess Jackson for sticking with that.  Plastic tracks are for the birds.  Rachel won the Oaks, Preakness, Haskell, Travers and the Woodward.

Zenyatta beat a bunch of tin cans all year, then stepped up on a big stage and won the BC Classic. She gets plenty of credit for that, but it pales compared to the resume of Rachel.

Richiebee,

I have read most of your posts for the last 5 years and they are always good and usually hysterical.  But I can\'t believe what you wrote here.  Thank god you don\'t have a vote.  One race = HOY?  No way.

I am not the head of the Rachel fan club, I am a gambler and have been stupid/stubborn enough to bet against both Zenyatta and Rachel all year long, but objectively looking at their records, I can\'t believe the vote will be even close.

Anybody that actually things Zenyatta will win and wants to bet on that, shoot me an email.  Be happy to take your money.

[JimP]

I don\'t think Zenyatta will win this one. There is just as much bias in this race as there was from the SA track surface. The track bias favored Zenyatta. The HOY voting bias does not. As handicappers we should take those biases into account. So I\'m not going to be betting on Zenyatta in this race. Unfortunately I didn\'t bet her on Saturday either. That wasn\'t very smart.

[Michael D.]

Here\'s my opinion.

If Zen runs in the Woodward, she inhales Rachel at the 1/16 pole and wins by a few lengths wrapped up. I believe Zenyatta is the better horse.

Z did not run in the Woodward however. She did not run in the Beldame. They scratched out of the CD race because they didn\'t like how the track looked. Zenyatta was indeed brilliant in the BC, but the \'09 BC was not the championship of anything. It was a series of very expensive races run over a new surface most had never seen, and will never see again.

Now, it is rather disappointing that Jess Jackson decided to run out the clock in the end. The Woodward win was an amazing feat for a 3 yr old filly, but just a solid  race when talking about the best runner in the land. Remember, RA got 8 lbs from Macho Again, a horse that could not win unless he was getting weight. Ducking quality runners in the big mile and a quarter races in the 2nd half of the year is not a good way to secure the horse of the year award imo.

Still, Mr Jackson set out an aggressive campaign early, and Rachel did dance the big dances, shipping to win the FG Oaks, Ky Oaks, Preakness, and Haskell, all in race horse time.

It’s a close call, but, in the end, Rachel did more than Zen to earn my imaginary vote for horse of the year.

[Cartman]

First, let me say that if I had a vote for HOTY I would vote for Rachel Alexandra. I think she probably had the best 3YO filly campaign of all time and an excellent one compared to most horses that have received the award. I think it was the better campaign than Zenyatta\'s in calendar year 2009.      

All that said, these are my other thoughts about the debate.  
 
1. The fields that Rachel Alexandra beat were unquestionably much weaker than the field Zenyatta beat in the Classic. They aren\'t even on the same planet.
 
2. It is easier for a filly to beat colts in the spring classics than it is for a filly to beat older horses and 3YO colts later in the year due to development issues. That\'s why others have won the SA Derby, Derby, Belmont etc...before, but they rarely even attempt the BC Classic or other great Grade 1 races against older horses unless they come up weak.
 
3. Macho Again and Bullsbay are Grade 3 or marginal Grade 2 horses that would have finished close to last and next to last in most BC Classics  
 
4. It is no more sensible to diminish the accomplishments of Zenyatta in the Classic because some of the eastern dirt horses were disadvantaged on the synthetic surface than it would to diminish the accomplishments of prior BC Classic winners because all the great European Grade 1 turf horses were disadvantaged by racing on dirt. Zenyatta still beat a boatload of multiple Grade 1 winning turf and synthetic horses from the US and Europe that were very suited to the surface in addition to those dirt horses.
 
5. The very same poor analysis that has plagued Zenyatta\'s reputation among easterners and figure handicappers has plagued some of the horses she\'s been beating all year in CA. Zenyatta has been out-kicking and crushing Life is Sweet all year in extremely slow paced races that impacted both horse\'s figures negatively because both are deeper closers. No one seems to have noticed that Life is Sweet looked like a world beater and actually ran a fast figure when  she beat a solid field in the Ladies Classic. That\'s because she finally got a \"dirt like\" pace in front of her to set up that performance and time. Those CA fillies were not that bad. It was just that the slow paces that are more prevalent on synthetic surfaces and especially in those small fields made them look weak because they caused slow final times.
 
I find it absolutely amazing that we just witnessed one the greatest fillies of all time put together perhaps the greatest overall race record of any filly in history and watched her close out her career with one of the greatest and most historic performances ever by a filly, on the biggest global stage available, yet she still can\'t get the proper respect!!  
 
IMO this is all because of biases against synthetic surfaces, east vs west childishness, and because most handicappers can\'t comprehend that final time figures earned on synthetic surfaces aren\'t comparable to dirt figures. It\'s utterly amazing. Even Rodney is rolling in his grave.

[manning]

Cart,

Not a bad post overall, but you have to consider why she has the reputation she has.  I think Saturday\'s race, in retrospect, was a real shame in that all i could think about afterward was what might have been.

These guys (Moss, Sherriffs) have this kind of horse in the barn, and race her like they aren\'t sure what she\'s capable of. Milady, Vanity, CL Hirsch, Lady\'s Secret?  What kind of campaign is this for a horse who can run a race like she did on Saturday?  Think about what might have been in 2009 if Zenyatta was asked to display her talent in the same way that Rachel was.  They didn\'t have to come East to do this either.  Why not run in the Big Cap and/or the Holly Gold Cup, and/or the Pac Classic, etc?  What a shame....

[Cartman]

I understand your point very well, but if they took the tougher path she may not have delivered hear peak on the right day. The plan from day one was to peak on Breeder\'s Cup day. Look at Rachel Alexandra. She had the tough campaign that some would have liked Zenyatta to have. However, if the Classic was on dirt and Rachel entered, IMO she would have been badly beaten. Part of the reason I think that is because she was \"done\" after that hard campaign and desperately needed a rest. You can\'t have it both ways. You can\'t have a great campaign and expect to be fresh for the BC also. Believe me though, I do understand your point.

[JimP]

Cartman, \"IMO this is all because of biases against synthetic surfaces, east vs west childishness, and because most handicappers can\'t comprehend that final time figures earned on synthetic surfaces aren\'t comparable to dirt figures.\"

All I can say is AMEN!

Confession: I am located halfway between the two coasts. I\'m biased against BOTH of them, but I try to not let that affect my handicapping. I am also biased against synthetics because I am a traditionalist, but I\'m working to overcome that as well. But I know what I saw on Saturday. That was one hell of a horse race by one hell of a horse. I didn\'t think she could beat that field and I bet it that way. Boy, was I wrong about Zenyatta. We can say in retrospect that it wasn\'t much of a field or the others were compromised by the surface, but I noticed on this board that not very many of us were playing it that way BEFORE the race. Who gets HOY is the matter of another race. I think I heard some mention that Summer Bird should be given some consideration. But that also was BEFORE the race. Now we\'ll see how the HOY race turns out. I doubt that Zenyatta can overcome the biases in that race any more than Summer Bird could in the Classic. But whether she gets HOY or not, Zenyatta is a race horse.

[manning]

I don\'t know.  They could have taken a shot or two in the year leading up to the BC, no?  They didn\'t have to go all out & run in all of them like Rachel did.  If we\'re at the point in horse racing where you have to save it all for one day, then this game is DOA going forward.  They are race horses afterall.  Probably a good idea to race them.  Especially if they\'re capable of running like she is....

[jimbo66]

Michael,

You chose to \"drop\" Zenyatta into the Woodward, which was likely Rachel\'s worst race of the campaign, from a performance perspective.

Put Zenyatta in the Oaks race that Rachel ran, or the Haskell, and she isn\'t within shouting distance, let alone winning \"wrapped up\".