Frankel

[plasticman]

The media promoting her has nothing to do with how good she actually is in context with the all time greats. The media is promoting a winning streak, its great for horse racing, it might get some people who wouldnt otherwise go to a racetrack to go to a racetrack. Not everyone cares about hard core handicapping stuff and whether Zenyatta is the 17th best all time horse or the 29th according to the moneyball version of horse racing. Its all opinion anyway.

They\'re promoting her because she won races consecutively.

Dan Uggla had a 33 game hitting streak. If he had somehow miraculously gotten the streak to 50 games, the stadiums would have been packed to see possible history. Nobody in the stadium or watching at home would suggest he\'s even 1/10th the player Joe Dimaggio is...yet, Uggla would have packed stadiums, and those packed stadiums would have been good for the game of baseball....however briefly it may have been,

Same with Zenyatta....she brought new fans to the sport. Whether they STAYED fans is an entirely different debate....i dont think the \'attention\' she got was anyone trying to convince anyone else she\'s the best horse ever. She might be THEIR best horse ever, but nobody was sticking her in the top 2 or 3 \'best ever\' debate......they left that up to people like us, hard core horseplayers on message boards to decide.

I \"get\" your frustration, i really do and i understand it. It is a little frustrating to see people who havent sweated blood and tears in this game as a serious horseplayer just come in and \'proclaim\' something without having gone thru the ringer like hardcore types have. \"How dare they\" make a statement about her greatness without checking with US first to see if we approve and how dare they make such bold statements without having decades in this game trying to really learn it inside and out like we have. I get that part.

People just want to have some fun and bandwagon around on the next \'good thing\'. Long after Z is gone there will be some other horse who wins 15 (or more) in a row and then the media calls THAT horse the next \'best ever\'. I\'m glad they\'re creating a buzz around ANY horse because any thought that there might be one dollar in the betting pools that\'s NOT from a supercomputer group using sophisticated speed figures and betting 300 wagers in a billionth of a second and creating an incredibly efficient betting market is sure a welcome thought for my weary brain.

If \'newbie\' bettors want to believe Z is the best thing since sliced bread, they can be my guest...the more the merrier!

[P-Dub]

plasticman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The media promoting her has nothing to do with how
> good she actually is in context with the all time
> greats. The media is promoting a winning streak,
> its great for horse racing, it might get some
> people who wouldnt otherwise go to a racetrack to
> go to a racetrack. Not everyone cares about hard
> core handicapping stuff and whether Zenyatta is
> the 17th best all time horse or the 29th according
> to the moneyball version of horse racing. Its all
> opinion anyway.
>
> They\'re promoting her because she won races
> consecutively.
>
> Dan Uggla had a 33 game hitting streak. If he had
> somehow miraculously gotten the streak to 50
> games, the stadiums would have been packed to see
> possible history. Nobody in the stadium or
> watching at home would suggest he\'s even 1/10th
> the player Joe Dimaggio is...yet, Uggla would have
> packed stadiums, and those packed stadiums would
> have been good for the game of baseball....however
> briefly it may have been,
>
> Same with Zenyatta....she brought new fans to the
> sport. Whether they STAYED fans is an entirely
> different debate....i dont think the \'attention\'
> she got was anyone trying to convince anyone else
> she\'s the best horse ever. She might be THEIR best
> horse ever, but nobody was sticking her in the top
> 2 or 3 \'best ever\' debate......they left that up
> to people like us, hard core horseplayers on
> message boards to decide.
>
> I \"get\" your frustration, i really do and i
> understand it. It is a little frustrating to see
> people who havent sweated blood and tears in this
> game as a serious horseplayer just come in and
> \'proclaim\' something without having gone thru the
> ringer like hardcore types have. \"How dare they\"
> make a statement about her greatness without
> checking with US first to see if we approve and
> how dare they make such bold statements without
> having decades in this game trying to really learn
> it inside and out like we have. I get that part.
>
> People just want to have some fun and bandwagon
> around on the next \'good thing\'. Long after Z is
> gone there will be some other horse who wins 15
> (or more) in a row and then the media calls THAT
> horse the next \'best ever\'. I\'m glad they\'re
> creating a buzz around ANY horse because any
> thought that there might be one dollar in the
> betting pools that\'s NOT from a supercomputer
> group using sophisticated speed figures and
> betting 300 wagers in a billionth of a second and
> creating an incredibly efficient betting market is
> sure a welcome thought for my weary brain.
>
> If \'newbie\' bettors want to believe Z is the best
> thing since sliced bread, they can be my
> guest...the more the merrier!

There are some very knowledgeable people, some that have seen some of the greats, people that have been around the game for many years that feel that Zenyatta is amongst the best fillies/mares they have seen.

For some on this board to proclaim those people don\'t know what they are talking about, while at the same time trying to tell the rest of us that their opinion is the only one that counts, is the height of arrogance.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but the constant cynical point of view is tired.

Sekrah hates her, we get it.

[richiebee]

sekrah Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I\'m talking in terms of how the media was
> promoting her as the greatest thing to ever exist
> in horse racing.

No not the greatest thing to ever exist, but certainly one of the great horses of her
era. Three times female HOY, one time HOY, BC Distaff winner, a win and a nose defeat
in the BC Classic. She was something slightly more than a media creation.
 
> There\'s non-horse racing people who know who
> Zenyatta is from the endless stupid stories done
> on the network news and ESPN.   Probably 0% of
> them know who Ghostzapper or Cigar were.

There are a lot of folks who wouldn\'t know about Seabiscuit, Phar Lap and Secretariat
if they hadn\'t made movies about them.

Who is going to play Bobby Frankel in the eagerly awaited Ghostzapper movie?

I watched Affirmed, Alydar, Spectacular Bid, Seattle Slew and Forego all race in the
1970s.

Two or three decades later, I watched GZ, Cigar and Skip Away.

There is a reason they are listed in two separate paragraphs. In my opinion, there
are 2 words which would aptly describe the horses in the second paragraph if they
raced against the champions from the 70s.

Those words would be \"also ran\".

[miff]

Think Plastic got it right. The Z hype was very good for the game and the \"westies\" squeezed the Z lemon dry(easties would have done the same had she campaigned on the east)

The debate part that her critics have is more about who she beat,where she beat them and how fast she consistently ran.

Z, without question, one the most consistent horses of all time at the top level, one of the greatest,if not the greatest, females of all time, not nearly one of the fastest of all time.


Mike

[miff]

Belmont cancelled,New York hotter than hell today.

[HP]

We\'re getting saturated with stories about the downside of horse racing in the New York Times.  Yesterday\'s front page had the frog story.  So a story about Zenyatta being great isn\'t the worst thing to happen for the sport in the mainstream media.  Mainstream coverage is never on the \"expert\" level we see on this board!  We need all the feel good stories we can get.  

HP

[TGJB]

Richie-- wrong question. Who\'s going to play the real star-- Steve Allday?

[sekrah]

No.. Not even the greatest of her era IMO.  Not close.

[P-Dub]

sekrah Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> No.. Not even the greatest of her era IMO.  Not
> close.


You\'ve made 5 different comments in this thread, all saying the same thing.

Zenyatta is overrated.

Is it Ok for someone else to give their opinion, without you making yet another comment saying the same thing over and over that goes against what someone else thinks??

Everyone on this board has a clear understanding on your feelings about Zenyatta, you are certainly entitled to them. But we get it already.

[HP]

Sekrah - Alzheimer\'s?  that\'s 101 times you\'ve said the same thing.  4 times on this thread alone.

[Lost Cause]

sekrah Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> No.. Not even the greatest of her era IMO.  Not
> close.

Not trying to keep this thing going but I have a question?

What would qualify as her Era?  Is it a 10 year time frame, 1990-1999, 2000-2009, etc..What is the definition of an Era?

Also...has anyone here noticed that fillies have been killers the past three years winning horse of the year..This year Royal Delta looks ready to keep that streak going..Anyone else find this unusual?

[TGJB]

Pdub-- you were writing that to him, but it also applies to yourself. How do you figure it goes, everyone gets one post on a subject and you get one for every one of theirs you disagree with?

There were other people on this string that disagreed with him but had something to say other than \"I disagree so shut up\". Which you say to someone pretty much every time Mike Smith or Z comes up.

I don\'t know if you want to do a search on this, but my guess is there are 4 times as many Pdub posts with the word Zenyatta in it as Sekrah\'s (or anyone else\'s).

[magicnight]

\"Also...has anyone here noticed that fillies have been killers the past three years winning horse of the year..This year Royal Delta looks ready to keep that streak going..Anyone else find this unusual?\"

Don\'t forget Black Cavier, and the fact that two of the last four winners of the Arc were fillies. Maybe it\'s Title IX crossing over to the equine gals.

[sekrah]

The best fillies can compete with the best colts.  When has that ever been different in horse racing?  It\'s always been fairly unique to horse racing that girls can be as fast as boys.   The media (and race callers like Durkin) have orgasms everytime a filly beats a colt as if it\'s never happened before.

The year she won the BC.. she wasn\'t even the most impressive female horse THAT YEAR!.   How could I put her in a class with the greatest of all time when she wasn\'t even the fastest female horse that year, nor the most accomplished.

As far as P-Dub.. I suggest you just ignore my posts if you don\'t like what I\'m saying.  From now until the end of the year, you\'ll probably see a negative comment from me towards Zenyatta somewhere between 0 and 20 times, depending on how often someone brings up how \"great\" she was.  We know you have a blind love fest with anything west coast related.  Any criticism of anyone from California is considered sin in your world.  It\'s pointless for me to continue to respond to your arguments that don\'t stand up to the facts.

[Lost Cause]

sekrah Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The best fillies can compete with the best colts.
> When has that ever been different in horse racing?
>  It\'s always been fairly unique to horse racing
> that girls can be as fast as boys.   The media
> (and race callers like Durkin) have orgasms
> everytime a filly beats a colt as if it\'s never
> happened before.

Agreed..But 3 years in a row, although I still can\'t believe Z beat Blame in that voting but regardless..3 years staright with different fillies??

>
> The year she won the BC.. she wasn\'t even the most
> impressive female horse THAT YEAR!.   How could I
> put her in a class with the greatest of all time
> when she wasn\'t even the fastest female horse that
> year, nor the most accomplished.
>

Definitely don\'t have her in that category...very good though...