After reading Shirreff\'s recent comments about pointing Zenyatta to another Clement Hirsch at Delmar this summer, one can only hope that Moss overrules Shirreff\'s ultra-conservative plans. I have this image of Shirreffs playing poker and folding every hand until he had paired queens or better.
On the other hand, Rachel\'s connections have gone from last year\'s ambitious campaign to making everything this year \"top secret\", not even deciding what race to run in this weekend until about 2 days before entries were drawn. Disappointing behavior this year from JAckson after what seemed like a real sporting campaigin in 2009.
With Shirreffs and his babying, combined with last minute Rachel decisions, how are the two fillies ever going to get together?
I just have this sinking feeling that in the end we are never going to see the two fillies race. And that would be a shame. If there was really anybody in horse racing that cared about the best interests of the sport, then getting these two together should happen and should happen more than once. It won\'t just be the OTB crowd or the degenerate gambler crowd that would pay attention when these two ran. Even non-horse racing fans have heard of these fillies. My wife, son and daughter, none of whom have ever made a bet, know of these two fillies.
Yes, yesterday\'s race at Hollywood was interesting and exciting in that St. Trinian\'s got 9 lbs and had a tactical edge and almost pulled off an upset. And yes, it was interesting to see Rachel run a big figure on Saturday and seem to be almost back to her old self. But the \"excitement\" of those two races was just a small fraction of the excitement most of us would have for seeing those two race against each other (in a race with other horses as well). A very small fraction.
How many Clement Hirschs in a row make up for one win over rachel Alexander? This bologna from Shirreffs about how difficult it is to ship out of California, versus shipping from NY to Florida and Kentucky is just crap. Pure crap. I don\'t know, but I remember watching (and betting on) Sunday Silence ship from the west and beat Easy Goer, the supposedly bigger hyped and faster horse. Didn\'t hurt Sunday Silence shipping.
Anyway, I hope I am wrong, but I don\'t think they will race this year. And 10 years from now, the small percentage of us that still pay attention to this game will look back and wonder how the hell two of the best fillies in the last 30 years raced two complete campaigns overlapped with each other and never raced against one another.
