A Sadness Today ...

[JimP]

... that I haven\'t felt but a few times in racing. Such as Secretariat\'s last race or Ruffian breakdown. Now we will never get to see this great mare Zenyatta run another race. These horses don\'t come along very often. It will likely be a very long time before we are privileged to see another one.

[Silver Charm]

I was backstretch after Silver Charm lost a \"wild one\" in the 98 Classic. We stood next to trainer Sonny Hine as Skip Away was being walked to settle down. Sonny and Carolyn Hine were also the owners of \"Skippie\". He earned them $9M+ and was to be Syndicated for Stud. They never had any children and after 40 yrs in The Biz, Skippie was their Lottery Ticket.

My friend said to Sonny, \"its ok, you will be back. You will have another.\" Hine\'s eyes never left his horse, he shook his head NO, and said \"Not like this one. Not in my lifetime. NEVER!\" Hine died a year later and I have never forgotten those words he uttered.

There may be somebody else super great and brilliant that comes along. But there will not be another Zenyatta. At least not in our lifetime......

[Sandreadis]

Great story Silver and agreed about Z.
Thanks

Never forget Skippie\'s 96 Bluegrass. I knew he was special.
I just saw an old quote from TGJB calling Skippie \"the most underated horse of all time\".

[sekrah]

Skip Away was one of the true greats..  Don\'t got a TG sheet on him but in 1997 he had an 8 race stretch where he never ran worse than a 115 beyer.  From Oct 97 to Sept 98, he ripped off 9 in a row against the best of the best, spotting them 12-18 pounds.   This was all done back in the day when these animals would very often go into every race on 3-4 weeks rest and spacing was a conspiracy theory that had to be talked about in hushed tones.    He probably would won another 3-5 races if Bailey had ridden him his entire career instead of Sellers.

Skip Away is the real definition of greatness.

[Uncle Buck]

Skippy was a fun horse. Not great. Gentlemen spotted him weight and still beat him. Formal Gold used to wear him out pretty good too. I will say that Skippy\'s \'97 BC Classic was a damn impressive performance although his main rivals were missing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge1mQDgKtuQ

[Sandreadis]

Buck, Skip Away 38 starts 18 wins 10 places 6 shows
$9.6 Million earned and the best adjectve you can come up with is \"fun\".
Since SA isn\'t \"great\", who are your post Affirmed greats? Let me guess, Easy Goer who lost 3 of 4 to SS.

[sekrah]

Not to mention the several track records he broke.  To not call this horse one of the all-time greats is ridiculous.

[Uncle Buck]

John Henry, Cigar, Zenyatta come to mind off the top of my head. But perhaps fun was the wrong word yes. Damn good older horse. How\'s that?

[Silver Charm]

Skippie beat Cigar when he was three. I repeat when he was three. Skippie was 2-3 lengths better late in his 4YO campaign and until the fall of his 5YO was totally unbeatable. I believe he carried 132 in the Iselin.

Skippie was a great horse. Probably Top 25 of all-time.

[sekrah]

Zenyatta ain\'t a pimple on Skippy\'s ass Buck.  

After Skip Away\'s 5 year old season he had a career 23 Beyer\'s over 110.   Zenyatta had 1.

Even among mares she\'ll never be more than a runner-up to Ruffian.

[richiebee]

From Today\'s New York Post: \"Zenyatta\'s star power nearly tripled television
ratings for the Breeders Cup Classic. ESPN said yesterday the preliminary rating
for the one hour broadcast window that included her race was up 180 percent from
last year.\"

[FrankD.]

Star power as well as creeping into prime time on a Saturday night.

Let\'s face it Richie were going to have to drink less during the day as a prime time Kentucky Derby with an 8:30 post time is on the horizon.

 More fans, more interest, more money in the pools all sound too good to be true. Worry not the God\'s of racing will find a way to screw it up !

[richiebee]

Frank:

Now that there is no more Thoroughbred Racing by the Moon at the Ghettolands, its
not hard to imagine night racing coming to Ozone Park.

[Rich Curtis]

Sekrah wrote:

\"Even among mares she\'ll never be more than a runner-up to Ruffian.\"

 There was no Thoro-Graph back then, but on Ragozin, Ruffian had a top of 5 and was running 7s before the match race.

[marcus]

I can relate to Jim\'s sadness about Z at the top of the thread . I don\'t remember quite a few of his historic references first hand - but it does seem that sometimes things are meant to be and fate intervenes - however ironically Zenyetta doesn\'t fit that bill imo . On a visceral level and even at 19- 1 she seems to have unfinished business on the track and potentially many good races in front of her yet . ..