What Do Jerry Moss and Tom Osbourne Have In Common!

[Silver Charm]

They both went for 2 when a tie wins the title.

Assuming Zenyatta wins her next race she could go in the Distaff and win the HOY by winning there. She doesn\'t need to run in the BC Classic and Tom Osbourne didn\'t need to go for 2 against Miami in the 1984 Orange Bowl!

For all of the criticsm Moss and Sherrifs took last year if they step up to the plate and roll the dice this year they should be applauded.

And if she wins and is 20 for 20 she may be moving some BIG NAMES aside at the top in Racing History!

[jbelfior]

Silver:

Which names would she be moving aside?

Good Luck,
Joe B.

[Silver Charm]

Let\'s start with ALL OF THEM and go from there......

[nyc1347]

zenyatta = queen of all popularity contests and the biggest public deception of all time!  MOSTLY helped by the polytrack with last years classic race.

i will go and say that zenyatta is the equivalent to horse racing truly as Boise State is to college football.. thats probably the best comparison i can make. i wouldnt be surprised if blind luck beat her if they raced.

[richiebee]

Just the type of response I would expect from someone who has probably never been
closer to a thoroughbred than he has been to a pari-mutuel window.

Keeping a horse physically and mentally sound for 4 seasons of racing AT ANY LEVEL
is an outstanding achievement, and I guess if you haven\'t been awake at 5 AM
shoveling horsesh-t, or getting a cast horse standing upright, or spending hours
aiming a hose at a horse\'s knee or ankle you never will get it.

I am not a huge Zen fan, and I paid pretty dearly for throwing her out of the
horizontal wagers in last years BC. But I have come to appreciate the fact that
she seems to always fire -- she is what some would call a \"pushbutton\" horse in
that she seems to know, with only the slightest of cues, when to commence her run,
and always seems eager to do so.

Also falling into that \"pushbutton\" category might be Champs Pegasus, who is very
lightly raced and very short on stakes credentials. As such he might be decently
priced in the BC Turf; at the very least he is an improving colt in very capable
hands.

In NCAA BCS football, a team almost has to run the table to secure a Number 1
ranking; so far Zen has run the table.

[smalltimer]

nyc.
Of course Zenyatta is a fraud.  Assuming Rachel and Z run in the Classic, which one will you place your show wager on?  Zenyatta of the 27.1 opening quarter or Rachel with the 27.1 final quarter?

[Silver Charm]

The Boise State analogy was a pretty good one. Because they did run the table, went undefeated and got left out. How about some of those old Joe Paterno Penn State Teams, maybe undefeated for two yrs and no title. Didn\'t beat anybody is what they said.

Agree with Ritchie B on the consistency! And actually have come to like and respect The Big Z the more I watch Rachel in decline. Pull up the PP\'s of an old Win Machine like Flawlessly (I mentioned Serena Song earlier) they both began losing 3 out of 4 stars toward the end of their careers. Serenas Song lost her last 5-6 in a row and yet some were by a head in the Whitney or a head in her last race at CD against nobody.

If Zenyatta wins the Classic she will have crushed Older Males twice in the modern day biggest race. She will be 20 for 20. Nobody, not even Man O\'War has a perfect body of work like this! She spread that over a period of several years. Something even Secretariat wasn\'t asked to do.

Zenyatta is like the girl down the street that you looked at but never thought twice about. Then you looked, looked again, and then again and again and again....and then realized as the others started looking less pretty she was the best looking thing you had ever seen in your life......

[ajkreider]

Obviously I can\'t say how and why people would vote, but it\'s certainly not obvious that Z should win HOY based on THIS YEAR\'s results with the Distaff win.  If Blame wins out, surely his campaign is more impressive than Z\'s.  And if QR wins out, his would be more impressive as well - especially given that his only loss would be by a nose to a lighter horse.

I hope she runs the classic just for the spectacle.

[jbelfior]

Silver:

You must have been born after 1970.

Otherwise you would surely know that Zenyatta would catch RUFFIAN.....in the winners circle getting her picture taken with Frank Whitely and Jacinto Vasquez.


Good Luck,
Joe B.

[Rich Curtis]

jbelfior wrote:

\"Otherwise you would surely know that Zenyatta would catch RUFFIAN.....in the winners circle getting her picture taken with Frank Whitely and Jacinto Vasquez.\"

  Since there was no TG then, here\'s Ruffian on Ragozin as Friedman remembers it: top of 5, and 7s immediately prior to the match race.

[miff]

Seems way too many on this site are confusing Zenyatta\'s amazing consistency with those who suggest,rightfully so, that she is as not as fast as many of the all time greats.

No one can dispute Z\'s perfect record of accomplishment.On the other hand,Z has yet run as fast as many others and has not faced the toughest competition in compiling her record.Beating up on the Sisters of the Poor, on synths most of the time, has not endeared her to many.

By accomplishment, she is an all time great, by speed figs, not so.If she gets to the BC Classic and runs past the field in a fast adjusted time,she\'ll win some of the naysayers over.

Mike

[TGJB]

Miff-- agree completely about Z.

[Silver Charm]

I guess that\'s why they play the game...as someone once said.

That particular Nebraska Team was being touted as \"maybe the greatest of all-time\" and promptly got beat. My reference to Osbourne with Moss is when Nebraska scored at the end of that Miami game, there wasn\'t a Time Out or anything to \"think about it\". The guy held up 2 fingers instantly and signaled TWO! They were going for the win when they didn\'t really have too.

Moss when interviewed after the recent Del Mar win was asked about running in the Pacific Classic. After he fully understood the question he immediately replied, \"Oh No we are going to run a Mile and Quarter later on.\" Without any hesitation at all in his voice or tone. BC Classic here we come!

Now this doesn\'t count for Figs or anything else. The competition has been what it is and it will be whomever ever is there at CD in the Classic.

But please when a horse like Spectacular Bid added to his legacy when he won a Walkover in the Woodward. Zenyatta\'s 20 straight Wins and potentially 2 in the BC Classic can\'t be discounted because someone says \"she beat nobody\"......

[TGJB]

Leaving figures out of it and just looking at accomplishment, what she has done so far puts her far ahead of Pepper\'s Pride, and far behind Cigar. The biggest accomplishment to date was her first win at Oaklawn, over a good field of FM. Second best was her win over a couple of decent synthetic specialists and a bunch of dirt and grass horses in the BC. And that race was won by Smith as much as Z-- if he didn\'t cut the corner she would not have won.

Winning the Classic THIS year, on dirt, would be another story altogether. If QR, Rachel etc. show up, that would be a very significant accomplishment.

[Silver Charm]

Thx!!

Trophy\'s and Greatness Titles are earned and not handed to you!

And that\'s why they play the game....