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!
Silver:
Which names would she be moving aside?
Good Luck,
Joe B.
Let\'s start with ALL OF THEM and go from there......
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.
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.
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?
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......
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.
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.
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.
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
Miff-- agree completely about Z.
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\"......
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.
Thx!!
Trophy\'s and Greatness Titles are earned and not handed to you!
And that\'s why they play the game....
TGJB wrote:
\"that race was won by Smith as much as Z-- if he didn\'t cut the corner she would not have won.\"
Since we\'re taking Zenyatta off the rail, can we also have her break with the field instead of getting a TG \"off poorly\"?
Since we\'re dealing with football metaphors, I can think of a couple which frame this issue for me:
On the one hand, you have, \"In order to be the best, you have to beat the best.\" So, yeah, I can see wherein lies some of the skepticism amongst the Zenyatta critics.
Conversely, you have, \"You can only beat the guys you\'re playing.\" There\'s no sin in going 19-0. Maybe John Shireffs doesn\'t really lose any sleep over the horse\'s position in the thoroughbred pantheon, but manages her to maintain her longevity and win a helluva lot of money. If so, mission accomplished.
I have no dog in this fight, and can equivocate with the best of them, but I can truly see merit to both sides of this interminable discussion.
We\'re not taking her off the rail. We\'re saying that the ride made the difference. Rides, actually-- the one on Twice Over had a little effect, too.
Tell you what I would like to see-- run her in the Arc. Given how she handles Pro-Ride, Z might be the best grass mare who ever lived. Like her chances better there than in the Classic.
Was that \"5\" when she set the track record in her debut at 5 1/2 in 1:03 flat by 15.
Or was it in the Spinaway when she ran a 1:08 3/5 by 13 as a 2yo filly?
Probably when she ran a 1:47 4/5 in the spring of her 3yo campaign winning off by 14.
Rich: She would have dusted Rachel, then come out the next day and dusted Zenyatta.
Jbelfior,
Ruffian was before my time. My point with the Ruffian/Zenyatta/Rachel Rags figures concerns the fact of the figures given by Ragozin, not the accuracy. It was really a reply to Miff\'s post. I have no trouble with anybody thinking Ruffian would have dusted Rachel and Zenyatta. I think Spectacular Bid would have dusted any horse who has run since he ran.
Also: I think by far the most important thing I quoted is the following: \"even after we make our correction\"
She has not shown the same interest in workouts as when she was younger. She is the type of mare that you have to be careful with, cause she won\'t do anything she doesn\'t want to. She is a bully, she is full of herself, if she feels like working she does, if not.. Once you put her in a racing environment with the stands full of people she is ready to perform.
She doesn\'t know anything but winning. She just lopes out of the gate, waits for Mike to prompt her and she starts to make her run. The only time she doesn\'t act like she\'s calling the shots is when the gate opens and Mike\'s riding her. If you watch some of her replays and slow the frames down in the stretch, its obvious she just keeps finding another gear, and then another gear. She is tenacious, and she\'ll be hard to beat in the Classic. But at age 6, is she beatable? Of course.
She is absolutely terrible at shipping, she is so high-strung she gets really dehydrated, she doesn\'t settle in like a lot of horses. So that\'s a legitimate reason for not shipping more than a couple times in her career.
Running in the Arc has never been mentioned. She likely would be a tremendous runner on turf and the farther they go the better. But, those are world class and proven turf horses and that would be kind of a tough turf spot to debut, don\'t you think?
I still think she\'s the likely winner in the Classic simply because the distance in no issue for her, only the trip she gets. Mike will ride her with the belief that the distance works to her advantage. When Z\'s camp shows up at Churchill, there\'s no question they\'re not coming to just run, they\'re coming to win.
I do hope Rachel and QR run in the Classic. It should make for a great matchup up front for the first 8-9 furlongs.
I have a race they should try. It is run on 11/2 at Flemington The Emirates Melbourne Cup.I think she would get the 3200m distance with no problem. I would get Lee Freedman (Makybe Diva 3 wins in a row) To train her and Glen Boss to ride her.
I will give you my opinion on Z.Some horses like to win and want to win.She will do what it takes to get the job done what ever the competition is. I have bet against Her many times because she looks slow at times by the numbers. You can not take any thing away from a horse that does not lose.I believe she would win the Melbourne Cup If they gave her the chance.
Sorry to be joining this conversation so late Silver Charm, but boy do I not agree with you.
A comparison can be drawn with Kelso, who won a bunch of big races multiple times. I\'ve made this point before.
He was a 5-time HOY and really never beat any horse of the quality of Dr. Fager, Secretariat, Affirmed...and I could go on. He ruled in a period during which competition at the top level was ordinary in ability. He was kind of like Rocky Marciano...do you really think the undefeated champ could have handled Ali or Frazier, for example?
NOT.
This filly is as great as Kelso, but not as great as the other champions above. You can honor her accomplishments, but please, please don\'t compare her to them.
On the other hand, no one should say anything negative about Jerry Moss. He\'s a finer person than most of us and his management of his stable is his business. It\'s hard enough to be in this game, get a good horse every now and then and then have to defend yourself for wanting to put your horse in a spot to win. That doesn\'t make him less of a sportsman...he\'s one of the best and no one here should question him until they measure what they would do if they were wearing his shoes.
Alm-- well put.
Marciano/Frazier wouldn\'t have lasted long, but it would have been wild for a couple of minutes.
Alm wrote:
\"He was kind of like Rocky Marciano...do you really think the undefeated champ could have handled Ali or Frazier, for example?\"
Yes. For one thing, close your eyes and try to picture even a 100YO Rocky Marciano losing to Leon Spinks. Marciano would have ripped Leon Spinks\'s arms off.
smalltimer Wrote:
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> She is absolutely terrible at shipping, she is so
> high-strung she gets really dehydrated, she
> doesn\'t settle in like a lot of horses. So that\'s
> a legitimate reason for not shipping more than a
> couple times in her career.
That\'s a really big exaggeration, based solely on her supposedly being dehydrated after the last time she shipped. Obviously she wasn\'t \"so high-strung the gets really dehydrated, she doesn\'t settle in like a lot of horses\" that Shireffs decided to ship her a second time last year and a third time this year.
Unless I\'ve missed it, Shireffs has never said a word about her being a poor shipper. They weren\'t so worried about shipping her when they claimed to pencil in the Beldame and other races as possibilities, nor did they state she\'s too poor of a shipper when they decided to not to go in those races. They\'ve also not said a word about worrying about shipping her for the BC.
The more famous the horse, the bigger the exaggerations.
WOW, first college football and now pro boxing!
20 for 20 over 4 years and defeated Males Twice in the Worlds Biggest Older Horse Race.
And somehow Leon Spinx enters the conversation...huh? How many times did Kelso lose over that 5HOY run? Secretariat lost twice in his 3YO campaign.
We will see what she does in the Classic because that\'s going to be a very good field. If she wins it will probably be a historic event in racing history! Skeptics will certainly downgrade the merits of it instantly. Good thing about Zenyatta is this one athlete or coach who is telling the truth when they say \"I don\'t read the papers\"....
Silver Charm Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> WOW, first college football and now pro boxing!
Heck, I\'ll add basketball to the mix. One of the appealing aspects of college basketball is that you get a champion. That seems to put all discussion to rest. But, does it really? Not if you want to conclusively answer the question, \"who was the best team in college basketball this year?\" If a third seed gets a hot hand at season\'s end, and runs the table, does that mean they\'re the best, or does it simply mean they\'re the champs? At day\'s end, does it really make any difference? The third seed has the ring. Period. If they lose the battle on the sports talk show or the neighborhood bar, what of it? Zenyatta\'s somewhere between 18-0 and 20-0, depending on whether you read Wikipedia or this board. That\'s her ring, to date. Is she better than Secretariat or Dr. Fager, or as the TVG wag, posited, \"the horse of the century?\" Why go there? It\'s inconclusive. The \'72 Dolphins were undefeated. Better than recent vintage Patriots? You can do no more than put it to a vote, so why bother?
We get terribly invested in a team, player, horse, etc., which is fine. I hang out on a college football team\'s board, and page after page of a single thread has been devoted to debating the merits of one former quarterback vs. another. By the time everyone\'s given up the ghost, the ball has not been advanced one inch. Of course, in such matters, the combatants do not have the benefit of Thorograph numbers. On that note, I believe I will hand off the ball.
\"Dehydration\", Shirreffs said, \"No matter how well the ship goes, it takes her time to recover. She\'s a big mare and she can still get a little wound up when she travels.\" All the other offspring of Z\'s mom have the same excitable tendencies. She did nothing for a week when she returned from Oaklawn.
\"You don\'t like to see the veins stand out.\"
DRF 5/9/10 in an interview with John Shirreffs.
You say she \"supposedly\" was dehydrated. You think she didn\'t return dehydrated and John Shirreffs said she was. Since you\'re not listed as the trainer I\'ll believe John.
\"The combatants don\'t have the benefit of Thorograph numbers. On that note I will hand the ball of\"
Moose I love Thorograph. They are the best Speed Figure in the Biz and there are some other good ones.
However Speed Figures are like Point Spread and the Power Rating systems that go into making them. The 72 Dolphins were an Underdog in that Super Bowl and the Joe Willie Jets were getting like 18 and a half.
Great athletes don\'t look at the Spread. They just go out and win. The Super Great go out and win everytime. Zenyatta still has work to do. She could up like the NE Pats vs the Giants. UNLV of Tark and LJ vs Duke or the 1975 Bob Knight Indiana Hoosiers vs Kentucky.
It only takes one loss and you are just another Good Team. Just as Tom Osbourne and 1984 Nebraska Cornhuskers.....
Silver Charm Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> However Speed Figures are like Point Spread and
> the Power Rating systems that go into making them.
> The 72 Dolphins were an Underdog in that Super
> Bowl and the Joe Willie Jets were getting like 18
> and a half.
>
Silver, I can\'t tell you how many times I\'ve gone to the windows, 3 or 4 days after a race, and demanded to collect a win bet on my second place finisher who ran a \"7\" vs. the winner\'s \"8.\"
The discussions of greatness get framed within a variety of contexts, none of which are all encompassing. For many, Zenyatta\'s unblemished record defines her greatness. For others, the relative homogeneity of her competition and/or racing surface, undermines it. Irreconcilable differences, plain and simple. If she loses, will that convincingly tarnish her greatness? Didn\'t seem to affect Secretariat, and a host of others. Or are they simply measured in another context?
Ultimately, I have found that such distinctions can only be meaningfully discussed by the \"eye test,\" and yet, what can be more subjective than that? By so many criteria, Tiger is the best ever, yet it grows increasingly unlikely that he will surpass Jack\'s major\'s total. Well, for a period of time he did what none had done before, and in an undeniably incandescent way. Now, he\'s the guy getting run down by the latest flavor of the month, albeit very talented flavor. And he\'s also the guy who got chased out of his house by his golf-club wielding wife. That does seem to dilute one\'s cachet in such matters. Beyond Tiger, who are your eye test stalwarts? Football QB\'s in recent history, Brady and Manning. That seems obvious with Brees on the cusp, and Favre hoping that longevity and sentiment cloud the issue. I\'d like to think you don\'t need TG numbers or QB ratings to make that determination.
Ultimately, I dodge such discussions like a maiden state bred claimer on the turf. The beauty of this game is that you have your answers in two and a half minutes or less. It\'s clear, it\'s clean, and it\'s decisive. There\'s only one context that matters. And if you didn\'t like that one, there\'s generally another one coming down the road, only thirty minutes away.
Smalltimer, did she miss a beat from that bout of dehydration? She didn\'t miss any works, she didn\'t miss any races, she won her next race. Horses travel around every day going to and from tracks, farms, and vet clinics. A fair percentage of them \"get a little excitable\" or a little deydrated or whatever. No one hears about them, no one is excusing all of them from still going out there to ship wherever it is they need to ship. One little bout of dehydration printed and it\'s blown up to huge, Zenyatta proportions, as if this is extraordinary instead of ordinary.
I find it frustrating that so many (not just you) exaggerate this whole situation. I\'m not even sure why people do it. They seem to want to give Zenyatta/Shireffs an excuse to not ship, but the claim that she\'s a basketcase who can\'t ship is a mark against her (the standard that horses ship and run at many tracks being one that goes back a long ways), so it backfires, really.
Funny Cide,
I\'ll agree when you say, \"Horses travel around every day going to and from tracks, farms and vet clinics. A fair percentage of them \"get a little excitable: or a little dehydrated or whatever. No one hears about them, no one is excusing all of them from still going out there to ship wherever it is they need to ship. One little bout of dehydration printed and its blown up to huge, Zenyatta proportions, as if this is extraordinary instead of ordinary.\"
The reason we don\'t read about that 25,000 claimer that becomes dehydrated or is a bad shipper is because nobody gives a shit.....
Anytime, ANY big horse shows a negative side after an event, it is a big deal.
You\'re just gonna have to be frustrated by the manner in which John handles this mare.
Where\'s the standard that horses ship and run at many tracks being one that goes back a long ways..Did I miss that, or is it written somewhere?
I thought I suggested that you not mention Secretariat, Dr. Fager or even Affirmed in the same post as that filly. If they only had to face a group of average to good fillies, poly and grass horses, they would have been undefeated too. Your frame of reference is skewed.
It\'s not their blemished records, it\'s their accomplishments. It\'s their world records, their track records and the group they defeated. It\'s how they defeated their foes. This filly couldn\'t have warmed up Sham. Look at the final quarter Secretariat had to run to beat him in the Derby. What makes you think she could have fired off the first mile of that Derby? She would have been scorched by the final 6 furlongs of his Belmont if she had to run against the first 6 furlongs he laid down.
And it\'s possible that Secretariat would have been fried by Dr. Fager head-to-head at 8 or 9 panels. This is a different category of horse.
Oh, and one other thing.
Perhaps the reason these truly great horses were actually defeated in races was because they ran in the premier races, over and over. This filly has not...not even the Pacific Classic, right? Not to mention a dozen other races at Mid-Western and Eastern tracks.
What is that I hear in my ear? Could it be the word \'ducking?\'
smalltimer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Funny Cide,
> I\'ll agree when you say, \"Horses travel around
> every day going to and from tracks, farms and vet
> clinics. A fair percentage of them \"get a little
> excitable: or a little dehydrated or whatever. No
> one hears about them, no one is excusing all of
> them from still going out there to ship wherever
> it is they need to ship. One little bout of
> dehydration printed and its blown up to huge,
> Zenyatta proportions, as if this is extraordinary
> instead of ordinary.\"
> The reason we don\'t read about that 25,000 claimer
> that becomes dehydrated or is a bad shipper is
> because nobody gives a @#$%&.....
> Anytime, ANY big horse shows a negative side after
> an event, it is a big deal.
> You\'re just gonna have to be frustrated by the
> manner in which John handles this mare.
> Where\'s the standard that horses ship and run at
> many tracks being one that goes back a long
> ways..Did I miss that, or is it written somewhere?
I guess you missed it because horses have always been penalized for not winning out of California or New York (think Sky Beauty) or their home state. Obviously Zenyatta\'s won outside of CA this year so she won\'t be penalized severely (like not getting a year-end award) but surely you haven\'t missed the criticism over her lack of shipping.
I don\'t know if Sheriffs has done an incredible job with Zenyatta, keeping a mare sound and undefeated, or if he\'s squandered one of the best mares in history by not letting her shine. But I do know this - if it\'s the latter, it\'s Sheriffs\' fault and not Zenyatta\'s. It\'s not that she can\'t ship, it\'s that Sheriffs didn\'t want to ship. He\'s tossed out every excuse in the book, whether it\'s that the mare got dehydrated once or the detention barn or, the most ludicrous of them all, he can\'t manage to find her a flight. All the while, he has tossed out that he was considering this race out East and that race out East. Does that mean he considered it for a half-second while he laughed at the consideration?
I like Sheriffs but what trainer of one of the best horses in history chooses to race that horse over a surface that horse doesn\'t prefer? Not once, mind you, but 16 of 18 times. What trainer states that the all-time great in his barn hates a surface (Del Mar) and still chooses to race that horse on that surface?
I can\'t even say that Sheriffs had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity because it\'s the rare trainer who will ever have a great in their barn in their lifetime. Sheriffs was one of the lucky ones. Instead of considering that when he looked at the upcoming 2010 and deciding to move the mare/stable East for at least Saratoga forward through the BC, he apparently couldn\'t leave his favorite chair and remote control.
So it\'s the trainer\'s doing - it\'s not any flaw of the mare\'s that has kept her at home, and I don\'t like seeing the mare blamed for the lack of shipping.
Funny Cide,
Fair enough. Don\'t you wonder just a bit about Rachel\'s campaign last year and the toll it has taken on her? Shes\'s been like a shot fighter all year compared to her exploits of \'09. Real good but not dominant like so many thought she would be.
Here we have Zenyatta, 6 years old, as sound as sound can possibly be. John has managed her a lot different than ALL of us would have liked, but he calls the shots and he\'s likely to have a very fresh, very good 6 year to load in the gate at Churchill. Then, she\'ll either be good enough or she won\'t, it won\'t be because she is burned out like Rachel or no longer wants to compete. She\'ll be a big factor in that race at Churchill. Again, my only concern is her trip and her age and if the track turns up wet, because that\'s an unknown with her at this time.
If she happens to win, then all the naysayers were wrong all along. We all know it will take one helluva horse to win that Classic. Whoever that is will get all the accolades that race provides.
Have a good one,
Peace out