Sure, I think Zenyatta can win the Classic.
First, subjectively, we\'ve been underestimating her from day 4 or 5 or something like that and as much as we may not like the campaigns her connections mapped out, one has to at the very least grudgingly admire her accomplishments. We, figure players, associate good runs and good efforts with performance, not to mention, accomplishment achievements. Usually they\'re synonymous and but often when performance outstrips accomplishment, we eagerly anticipate the next run armed with information which we hope will be undervalued. That\'s all wrong though. To echo Herman Edwards who bellowed, \"We play to win the game,\" thoroughbreds run to win the race. That\'s really all the counts. So no losses over a three year span is really quite impressive and the last 16 wins all within a 3-point band, is also quite impressive.
Now in so far as her sheet, her pattern, I offer the following. It\'s been pretty well conjectured, and if not quite proven nonetheless somewhat generally accepted that synthetic tracks have constrained brilliance, speed in particular, and as a result the range of performance is much narrower. Synthetics tend blunt speed and races are run more often like turf contests where generally whoever runs last runs best. Nothing new here, but since Zenyatta is so good over synthetics, and those are her home courses, most, all but two, of her runs have come over such surfaces and coupled with her come-from-behind style of running, both factors have indirectly and adversely, affected her performance figures. Also how many true speed horses has she ever faced over these surfaces? Has she faced any Sidney\'s Candy types over synthetics? Seems she hasn\'t met many if any and such confirmed speed types tend to stretch out the field and increase the performance range of figures, a la a dirt race.
She jumped up 5-1/2 points in her first dirt run--a not uncommon experience among synthetic-to-dirt performers and she\'s only improved a 0-1/4-point in the 2-1/2 years since. Of course those pair-ups and slight bounces have all come over the synthetic surfaces, save one. That might be construed as improvement, development--the fact that she\'s essentially been able to perform consistently at that new level, albeit with an absence of new peaks.
But rather than interpret the Oaklawn 2010 performance as evidence that Zenyatta is still equally as fast over synthetic and dirt, perhaps we can say that this was really an off race. (Conjecture, but plausible, I think.) Sure she ran a point off her top, technically a pair-up, but horses that get to the races at 3 generally hit their best levels at 5 or 6. Not so with Zenyatta and given her pedigree, the sire profile and the dam-sire, one has to wonder some. Dams-sire Kris S gets late developing route and grass runners while Street Cry from the more precocious Mr. Prospector line, won the Stephen Foster as 4yo, at 9 furlongs shows a TGI favoring older runners, distance and synthetic, although the surface accomplishment parameters are more equally weighted between dirt and synthetic. Add to that her pattern--she\'s cycling forward. Now her running style prospectively works against her but we don\'t know the post yet and Smith can ride inside when he has to or at least 2w2w. Also, trainer Shireffs is also pretty good in this spot--synthetic to dirt--and they\'re not all Zenyatta. In other words, a 3-point new top or so is not out of the question. She gets a bit of weight--0-1/2 a point or so, and with a decent, not great, 2w2w trip, who knows.
And that kind of performance certainly makes her competitive. Blame finally ran a poor one for him, he was due. But even if he rebounds, he too could face traffic problems and concedes some weight. Quality Road is just plain backing up and looks to be dueling or running with Haynesfield who bounced the last time he ran as fast as his last. Fly Down is intriguing but the likelihood is that the Travers knocked him out, or at least enough such that he won\'t run his best here. Lookin at Lucky is a heck of a good 3yo but off 3 efforts, and maybe his last isn\'t good enough.
Now is Zenyatta a good bet. Nope. She has to run a new top here and that may not be good enough. But I do think she has a shot to do it. I can\'t say she will win and I\'ll take a shots against her but I don\'t rule her out for reasons cited above.
