Rachel

[jbelfior]

Retire her now before she gets embarrassed. She\'s not the same.

Good Luck,
Joe B.

[miff]

Joe B,

Many with informed eyes agree with you.Zenyatta\'s connections licking their chops!

Mike

[Silver Charm]

Pletcher is VERY conservative and yet her in the Derby.

This Filly TOYED with this bunch today. He should give strong consideration to the Travers instead of the Alabama but he will not.

Older mares better be looking over their shoulders at this one!

[jbelfior]

Acting Happy will give her all she can handle in the Alabama. Today was just a conditioner.

Good Luck,
Joe B.

[P-Dub]

You guys are being too hard on her. That was a fantastic field she faced today. Really, every time a top female horse runs against inferior competition thats all we here about. Zenyatta faces nothing but chumps.

The fact that, once again, nobody wants to mention the quality of the fields RA faces must mean that this was an outstanding field.  Anything that may have looked like RA isn\'t the same can be chalked up to the fact, hey, its difficult to look dominating when you face such top competition.

Zenyatta would have surely lost today facing that bunch.

On a serious note, The Usual QT sure looked impressive today. What a turn of foot.

[miff]

Paul,

Rachel basically ran against the clock. The second horse put in a lifetime performance for sure.Very slow surface all day and the other two routes were very slow by comparison to Rachel\'s 1 49.78. She\'ll get a good negative fig but she is just not the same horse,figures aside.

Rachel will be in deep waters when/if she faces serious competition if that ever happens.


Mike

[jimbo66]

P-Dub (and Joe B)

Seems like Rachel is held to a different standard.  That was a lousy field she faced.  Very lousy.  But somewhat similar to a field or two that Zenyatta has faced during her streak.  Zenyatta beats a field like that by a length and a half on the polytrack and it is accepted.  Rachel wins by 4 with 11 lengths back to the 3rd place finisher and \"she should retire\".

I agree that it doesn\'t look like the same Rachel as last year and that\'s a shame.  I believe that last year\'s Rachel was the best filly I have seen (only covers the last 25 to 28 years).  But that doesn\'t mean she isn\'t good and it would still be nice to see her actually competing this year against real horses.  Jess Jackson and Steve Asmussen should not get a \"pass\" for their handling this year. (just like Shirreffs and to a lesser degree Moss should not get a pass for staying in California for 2+ years).  If they are going to race Rachel, race her.  I am not saying she has to run against Quality Road, because I don\'t think either filly is going to beat that animal, but how about racing against Life at Ten or some of the other graded stakes quality fillies?  Even if it isn\'t against the boys, how about racing against the best fillies?  That field yesterday was abyssmal.  Top beyer speed figures in the 80\'s?  

Shirreffs is no better either though.  Zenyatta will win the Clement Hirsch by about a length and a half.  She will beat below par fillies but will run her race and keep the streak in tact.  I can\'t believe that with all this talk about the decline of racing from all the talking heads, that they can\'t get together and get the two biggest racing superstars to meet in a race.  It would draw interest and might help (at least short term) the declining game.

[Silver Charm]

Money is tight. There is not gonna be a Make-a-Race for these two and I\'m not sure the connect\'s are barking for it either.

Rachel broke on her wrong lead and stayed there too long for me. However it was brutally HOT and HUMID from what I heard and there is no sense in sweating off a 100lbs if we are still at mid-summer.

There are not a lot of good older mares out there so I\'m not sure where these two are supposed to go to find them.

There are only 2-3 races left in the careers of these two greats. I\'m gonna enjoy every moment of them...

[alm]

I wouldn\'t make too many assumptions about how much she has slipped.

She ran about 10 lengths better than any other horse on the track yesterday...in incredible heat.  That\'s what you should expect her to do and she did it.

She may be a very interesting proposition at Churchill this fall.

[P-Dub]

Guys, I was just having a little fun with you.

On a serious note, why was that performance disappointing?  She looked pretty good to me.

[jbelfior]

P-Dub:

Something\'s not right with her.  She owes the game nothing at this point. As a fan , I would rather her just step away rather than seeing her not at her best or something worse.

Good Luck,
Joe B.

[smalltimer]

We should be glad she won and did so impressively.  It still looks like she goes way too wide into the first turn, I don\'t see that same push-button acceleration she had last year, but, hey, can anybody name 3 other fillies that could beat her?
I think both Shireffs and Asmussen have disappointed the racing public.  I would have much preferred to see Zenyatta strap it up a couple times on the East Coast regardless if she had gotten beat or not.  Neither camp has had a strong campaign so far this year and that\'s disappointing.
I do think Life at Ten will give Rachel all she wants and probably beats her when and if they meet this year.  Zenyatta we won\'t know because she\'s apparently not gonna join that fray.
Like someone said though, we\'re running out of time, hell, it\'s almost August and both camps keep finding reason to keep these stars apart.  
Now that the nice filly of Ron Ellis has been shelved for the year, it looks like Rachel, Zenyatta and Life at Ten are easily the 3 best on most days.  
Is their legacy gonna be the 2 best females of the last 25 years and they never met on the racetrack?  That would be pathetic for both Jackson and Moss.
We all looked forward to this year when Rachel was set to return, and then when Zenyatta was unretired, it was like, wow, finally we get to see them hook up a time or two.

[smalltimer]

With all due respect, this is still an elite racehorse.  She\'s not gonna dupicate her numbers from last year, but she\'s still one of the top 5 racehorses of any gender on the American scene today.
I can\'t believe I\'m supporting Rachels accomplisheents when clearly I\'m a huge Z fan, but Rachel\'s back on track and we don\'t really know with her additional conditioning how much she still has when she\'s realy put to the test.  
I still think Zenyatta will beat her, I thought Zenyatta would have beaten her last year, but damn it, I\'d like to have the chance to be proven right or wrong?  
Rachel and Z probably only have 2-3 races each till the end of their careers.  We\'re running out of time. Right jimbo?

[miff]

\"She\'s not gonna duplicate her numbers from last year, but she\'s still one of the top 5 racehorses of any gender on the American scene today\"

Small,

Actually,her numbers will be close to last year, including yesterdays. She\'s just not the same horse.


Mike

[girly]

When I read that she had to lay down in her stall after the Woodward I knew she would never be the same-but she is one of the greatest fillies of all time-No one can take away what she did in that race and I for one would like to see a match race-doesn\'t matter the outcome...she deserves her title as horse of the year!