Zenyatta-Outstanding

[Silver Charm]

Jerry he hit her 8 times in less than 400 yds. He needed her to reach out and once he got what he asked for it was OVER!!

[smalltimer]

The weight is totally wrong in your scenario.  The reigning Horse of the Year gets spotted 4 pounds?  Make it even weighted at 123 apiece, that way, neither horse is compromised and if I were Z\'s connections and was expected to concede 4# to the reigning HOY, I\'d tell them to stick it.  These are two truly great animals, they will put on a great show if they can be matched up in the next few months.  Anytime you have a weight concession it leaves the argument open if the race is decided by a half length or so.
How great is it that they both are still running great?  Two months ago it looked like Rachel was not going to be able to match or approach her greatness from \'09.
Zenyatta runs her usual disadvantaged style against a nice filly, spotting weight and still finding enough late to get the job done.  She\'s a great one, no doubt. I watched the replay several times now, and Z was ALL OUT until a couple strides before the line, so it was not easy today and I knew it wouldn\'t be.
I do think if Z and Rachel get matched up, the lead up to the race in terms of workouts for Zenyatta will be different that leading up to this one.
129#\'s and her advancing age all added up to a real gut-wrencher today. I\'m just glad she was able to pull it out.

[nyc1347]

i think she earned a negative 4 for this race.. that effort was amazing!

[dannyboy135]

jerry, with all due respect.  Racheal doesn\'t want any part of zenyatta.  Lets hope the match doesn\'t take place. Numbers schmumbers zenyatta goes as fast as she has to.

[SoCalMan2]

nyc1347 Wrote:
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> i think she earned a negative 4 for this race..
> that effort was amazing!

haven\'t seen race yet, so maybe my comment is out of line, but if Zenyatta ran a negative 4, does that mean St. Trinian\'s ran a 0 or so?  

I did not think that anybody in the race could run a 0 other than Zenyatta.  If i had thought St. Trinian\'s could run a 0, I would have pounded her with everything I had and let Zenyatta try to run a lifetime top at age 6.  

Again, I haven\'t seen the race, but if you assume that Zardana was baked by her big number and St. Trinian\'s is basically a pretty reliable figure (between 2 or 3), then the 9 pounds and ground probably only add up to around her usual top race, no?  

Not trying to be sour here, just trying to figure out figures.  If she did run a minus 4, then as a six year old mare, one has to wonder if that will be the knock out of all knock out numbers.  I sure wouldn\'t bet on a six year old mare to hold together after making a new 3 point top.

All of this being said, doesn\'t Rachael Alexandra have a huge advantage if they wait to the Breeders Cup to meet?  I mean she will be hitting her absolute peak age and Zenyatta will be close to 7.

I want to stress, I am not saying anything about what they have accomplished and who is better than whom, just try to discuss figure forecasting and nothing more.  If you do not like it, change the names of the horses to Filly A and Mare B.

[jimbo66]

Negative 4 seems a stretch.  Zenyatta only won by a half length and spotted 2 points of weight to St. Trinian\'s.  I don\'t believe Zenyatta lost more ground, but will leave that to TGJB.  Looks to me like Smith let St. Trinian\'s fan out to the 4 path early in the turn, while he waited till halfway through the turn to fan Zenyatta one path wider, but only for half the turn.  I don\'t think St. Trinian\'s ran a negative 1.5 (which would be Zenyatta\'s negative0.

I would be she ran her usual race, somewhere around negative 1.  

Let\'s see though.

Dannyboy,

You must be the only horse racing fan/player on the plan that would say \"let\'s hope they don\'t meet\".  Not even sure what your reason for hoping that could be.

[Lost Cause]

The wife walks in and sees a replay and says they needed to feed the horse I bet (St. Trinians) more that\'s probably why I got beat..I looked at the replay and I can only laugh.  Z is like 50% bigger than St. Trinians.

Anybody who says Z won wrapped up is crazy..That horse ran hard today to catch St Trinians.  

She is great to watch though as she makes every race exciting..and yeah the announcer is going to need some honey and lemon for his throat after that call.

The best part is listening to the crowd after she gets up..It\'s like everyone is cheering for her....Great for the sport..

So the Delaware Handicap @ 10F is in five weeks. Del will probably up that to a million dollar purse to attract those two. (Doubt Rachel wants to go 10Fs with Z)
or the Ruffian  at Saratoga in 7 weeks @ 9F, they\'ll probably up that purse also.  This one seems more likely.
Any others?

[SoCalMan2]

Lost Cause Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
.......
> So the Delaware Handicap @ 10F is in five weeks.
> Del will probably up that to a million dollar
> purse to attract those two. (Doubt Rachel wants to
> go 10Fs with Z)
> or the Ruffian  at Saratoga in 7 weeks @ 9F,
> they\'ll probably up that purse also.  This one
> seems more likely.
> Any others?


If they run at Delaware, I will be really sad. While the place is beautiful and I used to love it years ago, I have had some bad experiences there involving crookedness in more recent times and that last thing this sport needs is a black eye in its marquee event which could happen there.

I like the idea of a match up occurring in an unrestricted race -- give the boys a shot too.

[Lost Cause]

I agree with you on DE.  I really don\'t think it would happen anyway as 10F would cause one to have an advantage and it is only five weeks away.  I was just throwing out the only two possible races I saw on the calendar.

[SoCalMan2]

Just saw the video -- also tried to watch the head on and i have never seen anything so screwed up.  Does anybody know if Hollywood Park plans to fix the official head on?  They are missing half of the race -- they splice straight from the end of the first turn to the stretch drive.  Whoever makes the video at Hollywood Park should be ashamed of him/her self for that product.  Absolutely disgusting and inexcusable.  If you tried to time the race off the head on (and you ignore your eyes and believe they got it right), you would have them doing the 9 furlongs in about 5 furlong time.  

At least they showed the first turn on the head on -- and if all other things are equal, it looks to me like Garcia blew the race on the first turn (he seemed to go a path wider than Zenyatta) for no apparent reason.  Rosario had no problem keeping the filly in the one path in her two prior races (ironically also out of post 2).  

Anyway, doesn\'t look to me like Zenyatta ran an effort that should induce a bounce.  Looks to me like her usual (prolly, between a 0 and a minus 1).

[P-Dub]

I received a person to person message yesterday asking why am I so defensive about the \"slow mare\".

I didn\'t bother sending back a reply. Hopefully this person watched the race. I couldn\'t have put it any better than the \"slow mare\" did today.

I know this a Thorograph board, and we center our discussions around TG figures. Its just sad that some people, like the person that sent the message to me yesterday, can\'t take their eyes off of a sheet of paper with a number on it long enough to just cherish and appreciate the greatness of Zenyatta.

We hear how unsporting the connections are, how slow she is compared to others, how she is a synthetic freak that somehow diminishes her accomplishments.  All I know is that not only does she \"just win baby\", she does so in a fashion that leaves one breathless and exhilarated. She is truly one of the All Time Greats.

I was at the Oakland Coliseum the day Barry Bonds hit #715. I hate the SF Giants. Can\'t stand them. But I, along with the entire sold-out crowd, stood and applauded the accomplishments of that marvelous ballplayer. I didn\'t care about Balco, PEDs, or any of the other stuff. I witnessed history, saw in person one of the All Time Greats and was glad that I did.

Same with Zenyatta. It shouldn\'t matter what you think of synthetics, scheduling, TG numbers, whatever. Every person watching her, whether she is your favorite or not, should have been applauding and standing as she roared down the stretch and put herself in the history books.

If you can\'t appreciate what this mare has done, if you can\'t enjoy watching her race, if all you can do is diminish her accomplishmnets and point to a number on a sheet, then you are missing out on more than you\'ll ever know.

And someone get Vic a glass of water.

[Dana666]

Well said as usual.

[Dana666]

Interesting note, if you read the T-G analysis for the race yesterday, they were touting Zardana as having a chance to beat Zenyatta. That\'s a good example of going strictly by the numbers, and look, I\'m not being disingenuous, I get it, this site is (primarily) all about numbers, but if you try to compare Zardana to St. Trinian\'s and, of course, Zenyatta, it would be like comparing a really good college baseball player to a major league superstar. Zardana would be a 50K claimer if not for racing on Polytracks where the competition is often suspect, and she being smallish handles the polytracks well. In stature, physicality and talent she\'s not even close to St. Trainian and, of course, Zenyatta but on numbers she had a shot!? In no universe could she ever have had a shot.

[jimbo66]

Dana,

Agree that was probably a bad job on the analysis tabbing Zardana to win (sorry TGJB or TGAB).  To me, this is the consistent problem when using TG numbers across surfaces.  (maybe it exists for Rags too, but I don\'t use Rags, so don\'t know).

Yes, if Zardana could repeat the negative number she ran in the race against Rachel, she could have won yesterday, with a clean trip.  And maybe the \"timing\" was OK for her to repeat, off the non-effort last time out.  But is it rational to expect Zardana to repeat that dirt number at Hollywood?  I would say no, not in this lifetime.  I guess whoever did the analysis would say that the Hollywood surface is the closest of the synthetic surfaces to dirt, but I believe Zardana had already run there and not run that fast.

BTW, very hard to believe that TGJB would have put Zardana up in the analysis as this filly could be a posterchild for his \"one and done\" theory where a synthetic horse runs a big number first time dirt, then falls apart completely thereafter and never approaches that number again.  (for some reason)

[TGJB]

Jimbo-- I not only would have put her up, I bet her myself.

Everything is a function of price. Yes, surface was an issue, though Cushion is enough like dirt that I was okay with it. No, the timing was not good for a return to the big top. But a) If she ran her top at the weights she was gin, period, all voodoo nonsense aside, and b) an awful lot of horses have been following dead rail trips with tops recently (and paying big prices). If she was 25% to run her top she was 25% to win, and a play at the price.