Just how good is Rachel.....

[jimbo66]

To me, the evidence, even beyond the speed figures, is really piling up that Rachel Alexander is not just great, but really really great, as in maybe one of the top horses of the last 30 years, of any gender.  Not only does she win with flare and fast figures, but those that fall in her wake come back and run big.  Just Flashing loses to her by 20 lengths, then comes back and wins the Grade 1 Test.  Summer Bird, with a rail trip, gets dusted by Rachel with a 4w/3w trip, by over 6 lengths at Monmouth, then Summer Bird comes back yesterday and to me beat what I thought was an above average Travers field, with complete ease, under a very confident ride by Desormeaux, throttled down the last 100 yards.  I know these multi-race comparisons where one horse beats another horse who beats another horse, are a house of cards, but the evidence is significant this year.  As I posted a few weeks back in response to somebody calling this a very weak crop of 3 year old colts, I don\'t think it is.  I just think that a freaky fast filly is making this year\'s group look mediocre.  Summer Bird is a good horse.  Mine that Bird is also a good horse.  Despite yesterday\'s \"dud\", Quality Road is a very good horse IMO.  

Meanwhile, a terrible terrible job IMO by Jerry Bailey and Randy Moss in yesterday\'s telecast for taking Jess Jackson to task for not running in the Travers and picking the easier spot in the Woodward.  They had a horse for the Travers and Rachel has already won two Grade 1\'s against colts on her resume (Preakness and Haskell), it made perfect sense to let Kensei run in the Travers and add \"older horses\" to Rachel\'s agenda and legacy.  Just ridiculous criticism by Bailey and Moss, especially in light of neither one of them mentioning Zenyatta, and the fact that John Shirreffs is hiding under a rock somewhere in California, trying to find another synthetic, equal weights, rigged field to run against, where Zenyatta can drop 20 lengths out of it against allowance calibre horses, then rally late and wide to win by a neck, keeping her streak in tact.  

Charitable Man is not a good horse.  Agree with Miff.  The horse has lost his gate speed, has no acceleration, and no fight in him at all.  Very poor performance yesterday.  Actually miserable.  Similar goes for Warrior\'s Reward.  I give up on him, which means he wins next time out.  He is better than Charitable Man, but that is not saying much.  Strange ride by Borel, leaves the gate, tucks inside, but then floats 3 wide the first turn on his own, and continues in the 4 path all the way around the track.  Interesting from Calvin \"Bo-Rail\", but the horse was a slow rat anyway.  I think Quality Road gets a Mulligan for yesterday.  Huge physical horse, who should never be down inside, let alone buried on the rail on a sloppy surface.  A slow break but then indecisive ride by Johnny V., although the horse didn\'t have any punch.  Give him  a chance on a dry track.  Sometimes those huge hulking horses don\'t glide over the sloppy surfaces well.

Birdstone is one helluva an underpriced distance stallion.

Jim

[firmturf]

Nice article at DRF titled \"Birdstone Rewards Whitney\'s faith\" about him as a stallion.

Bailey and Moss would have had better ratings if she had run so of course they will say that. I\'ve come to the conclusion that all the TV guys are clowns.

[smalltimer]

Jimbo,
Doggone it, do you really think Rachel needs your touting to win HOY?  
Your shots against Zenyatta are totally ridiculous.
You say, \"equal weights, rigged field, can drop 20 lengths out of it against allowance caliber horses, rally wide and win by a neck.\"   EVERY SINGLE WORD OF THAT IS B.S.   She packed 129# two outs ago, she has NEVER been 20 lengths out of any race, and she won 1 time in a dozen races by a neck.  Get real.  If you\'re gonna continue to sing the praises of how great Rachel is, and I agree, then at least be honest about Zenyatta. Do I think Rachel will beat Zenyatta if they ever match up?  No, and I don\'t give a crap what the figures say.
I can\'t wait until those two females match up...
Jimbo, I respect your opinions, but give it a rest.

[sekrah]

Wow.. You Zenyatta lovers have some sort of inferiority complex.

Rachel/Jackson are afraid of NOBODY and have run against and beaten the best males in the world and won by city blocks.  Zenyatta/Shireffs have ducked tough fields and is winning by sidewalk sections.

It\'s nice of you to spoutoff \"Do I think Rachel will beat Zenyatta if they ever match up? No, and I don\'t give a crap what the figures say.\" when you know Zenyatta\'s connections are too GUTLESS to ever test such question.

How is your prime lot on that river of Da Nile?  You have a good spot?

[smalltimer]

My point being, since you have to prop up Rachel that requires you to belittle Zenyatta?  Can\'t you be happy in touting Rachel\'s greatness?  
If Rachel/Jackson are afraid of no one, then just have them come out to California in November and try the synthetic.
It\'s pretty obvious Zenyatta will win another Eclipse Award this year and has made no legitimate effort to secure a HOY honors, clearly, Rachel\'s monster year and Zenyatta\'s tepid schedule assure that.
And sekrah, if most these females stay healthy, the race WILL happen this year.
What part of DaNile am I missing?  I\'ve said Rachels great, and Zenyatta\'s campaign is less than deserving of HOY honors.  
Am I willing to concede the race would be a walkover for Rachel?  Not one bit.
If you look at the archives, those who love Rachel already have a litany of \"excuses\" lined up in the event she gets beat.  I.E., tough campaign, blah, blah, blah.  Take your pick of ready made excuses for Rachel if she falters.  
I would suggest if Shirreffs and the California crew show up against Rachel and get beat they\'ll say they got outrun by a fabulous filly.  End of story.

[PatrickM]

Best male horses in the world? Puff, puff give......

[jimbo66]

Smalltimer,

She is going to win HOY.  My touting on this board (or anywhere) is obviously meaningless.

Forget about the Zenyatta-Rachel comparisons, we have done enough of that.  

My point was mostly a criticism of Bailey and Moss.  How can they criticize Jess jackson for taking the \"easier road\" as they called it, by running in the Woodward, without mentioning at all anything about Zenyatta and her \"tepid campaign\" as you called it.

For whatever reason, it seems Jess Jackson is pretty unpopular amongst the horse racing writers/analysts etc.  I have read similar criticism about him on bloodhorse.com and drf.com, which to me is really really aggravating.  If I was Jackson, I would be tempted to retire the filly and say \"go to hell\" to everybody.
She has been campaigned more aggressively than any major public horse in the last 10 years.  Smarty, Bernardini, Afleet Alex, Street Sense, all the other \"quick campaigns and early retirement\" horses of the last number of years.  And I am missing many others.

Jackson should be applauded for taking on new challenges and campaigning this filly at so many different tracks, in so many different states, against colts, against older horses, etc.etc.

Kudos to him.

[smalltimer]

Jimbo,
We\'re in agreement with much of what has been said.  The idea that any path that Rachel takes (after her demanding campaign thus far) is easier than the other is debatable regarding Moss/Bailey comments. No question Rachel has answered every call, taken on the boys, will take on the older horses, so yes, I agree Moss/Bailey not putting Shireffs and Zenyatta into the mix does a disservice to Rachel and seems to give a free pass to Z\'s campaign. Is it possible they\'ve decided to not denegrate Z\'s campaign in order to not affect fan\'s way of thinking about Zenyatta in the BC?  Is it possible they\'ve had negative reactions from othes about earlier comments on these two fillies?
And Jimbo, I really do mean \"tepid\" schedule for Zenyatta.  I was hoping in the last few months Z\'s connections would stick their neck out and try to WIN HOY honors and I\'ve been disappointed in their campaign like many others. I almost think in hindsight, it would have been much better for the racing fans if Zenyatta had been beaten in her career sprint debut (much like Rachel) so her connections would not have to be so focused on trying to maintain her spotless record, and would have been more willing to ship to other locations in an effort to build a resume worthy of HOY honors.  That disappoints a lot of us.  
Jimbo, I totally agree with your comment that we\'ve went back and forth enough about the Rachel/Zenyatta comparison, as like yourself, I would love to see them hook up and just run the damn thing at 9f and one turn.  Outside of Z potentially losing her undefeated string, I see no shame in her being beaten by a fabulous filly, nor would I see any shame in Rachel running less than her best and being beaten by Z or the older animals.  The day may come when one or both of them just fail to run their race and loses, they\'ll still be great race animals.  
I appreciate the fact that you and I have been able to maintain some civil decorum toward each other after our earlier failings......lol  Probably some begrudging respect there, in an odd way.  Regardless, I\'ve grown to appreciate your insights on Rachel and other aspects of the racing game. Keep up the good work.
Question though?  I Want Revenge ran the big number earlier in the year moving from synthetic to dirt and Zenyatta having shown at Oaklawn that dirt is probably her best surface, considering Zenyatta would have beaten IWR like a baby on synthetic OR dirt, why is it still believed by so many people that Rachel would just enjoy a cakewalk against Zenyatta?  
Assuming Rachel hadn\'t already stolen away from the field, she would be such a huge target for Zenyatta to run at in the stretch. I\'m asking your opinion...
Have a great one.  
(P.S. went to a Hall and Oates concert last night and didn\'t get home till after midnight.  Very, very late for this old man and I may have awakened a little cranky.  Now, I have the cobwebs out and am headed for the track).
Later

[jimbo66]

Smalltimer,

I think your assertion that Zenyatta\'s best race figure-wise is the dirt race at Oaklawn is something that many would disagree with.  On thorograph, this is a true statement.  But to me and many others that use Thorograph as their data provider of choice, there are obvious scale issues in comparing synthetic figures to dirt figures.  Beyer has made an adjustment to calibrate this problem and there is some kind of adjustment being made on RAgozin as well, although I have no idea what that adjustment is and some of the recent remarks by Len about figure adjustments on their board are a bit scary.  

Besides the compacting of figures issue, there is the sometimes phenom out there about a first time \"jump up\" for synthetic horses when they switch to dirt for the first time.  However, if you look at the horses that have made this \"jump up\", all of the ones i can think of, share two common traits.  First off, they are all poorly bred for synthetics and well bred for dirt.  Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, all the jump ups seemed to have involved horses with early speed or pressers.  Synthetic surfaces seem to take the edge off of speed horses with \"brilliant\" speed pedigrees and of course, it favors deep closers with quick footed acceleration.  From a pedigree perspective, it seems that Zenyatta is neutral in that there is enough dirt in her pedigree.  However, from a style perspective, it would seem the synthetics have flattered her style and the chances of a big move up are somewhat remote.

Hopefully we get a chance to see the matchup.  

Good luck,

Jim

[TGJB]

Jimbo-- I would point out that if you take what Friedman has been saying seriously, they will give that German filly a much bigger figure than the fillies she beat in the photo. She came from way back behind a 1:17 6f, ran the last sixteenth in under 6 seconds.

Yes, it\'s scary.

You do understand that there are tons of horses that have not moved up coming from synthetics to dirt, right? Not just California horses, but those from Woodbine, Keeneland, Presque? I\'m not going to argue with the running style point (as I have said, I just don\'t know), but the scale business is wrong.

Look, some horses handle that stuff, some don\'t. Student Council did, Fiddler\'s Afleet did not.

[jimbo66]

TGJB,

You can say the \"scale business\" is wrong, but I don\'t know a serious TG player that I have met that doesn\'t think the scale is off.  The same way your turf scale is different than the dirt scale.  Call it compression, say it is because the races are closer together generally at the finish on synthetics and  turf as compared to dirt. Or don\'t explain it at all, but the facts are that the fastest dirt horses on TG run negatives 3\'s 4\'s, 5\'s and there have even been negative 6\'s.  The fastest synthetic and turf horses don\'t run those numbers.  And it is a TG phenom, it doesn\'t exist on the Rags product.  Who knows, since Len  seems to suddenly have moved from dogmatic non-track variant changing curmudgeon to creative artist that takes great liberties with figures based on his view of how horses could have done with better pace setups, perhaps he is just \"smoothing out the curve\".

I don\'t know. but the compression on TG exists.

Beyer wrote about the compression of figures and he is certainly an authority on the subject.  

It isn\'t something I made up this morning because I lost a few races.

[miff]

\"Similar goes for Warrior\'s Reward. I give up on him, which means he wins next time out. He is better than Charitable Man, but that is not saying much. Strange ride by Borel, leaves the gate, tucks inside, but then floats 3 wide the first turn on his own, and continues in the 4 path all the way around the track. Interesting from Calvin \"Bo-Rail\", but the horse was a slow rat anyway\"


Jim,


Maybe too hard on yourself. Brutal ride by Borel, launching 4-5 wide early down the backside into a fastish pace.Think WR did not really run as bad as it will look and he may be ok cutting back in distance next time.

Funny how these \"flavor of the day\" jockeys and trainers do not do too well when they are not riding/training a Cadillac.


Mike

[TGJB]

Jimbo-- Yes, there have been some big figures run on synthetic. Midnight Lute ran a neg 5, and Zenyatta has lots of big figures for a mare (they run 3 points slower than colts). The Canadian sprinter who ran second in the BC was coming off a neg 4 on synth-- as a 3yo.

The same issue exists (more so) with turf horses-- there are even fewer really big figures. I haven\'t heard anyone complaining about our grass figures. Some horses prefer grass, some dirt. The difference is that most horses in this country get a shot on dirt before they try grass. However, there are some grass horses who do move way up when they finally try dirt.