Breeders' Cup Thoughts

[Flighted Iron]

Now you want to look at a figure to make a judgement?? Because as we all know, synthetics and dirt figures are easily comparable. Right.

In her case,yeah it may be since she does have that lone dirt fig.Giving her the
benefit of the doubt the neg 1 was no fluke,I\'d say it\'s reasonable to make
her subject to be 2 pts faster on dirt.She\'s still not faster than Rachel
and she\'s traveled once?A rested Rachel on that pace scenario yesterday on real
dirt and it\'s \"Katy Bar The Door\".

[P-Dub]

We\'ll just agree to disagree. You are certainly entitled to your opinion.

One thing we can agree on, that was one great day of racing.

Lost in the Zenyatta hoopla is the tremendous accomplishments of both Goldikova and Conduit. Winning back to back BC is a monumental achievement. My seats were between the 1/8 and 1/16 pole, a great vantage point to watch the stretch runs really heat up. Conduit is a beast, watching him give his all over a game Precious Passion was thrilling stuff. Goldikova, working out a trip from the far outside, gave another scintillating performance.

Met up with Smalltimer after the Classic. we were standing right by the gift shop where the horses come back from the track. Watched the horses and jockeys walk by, signing programs (the jockeys, not the horses...but I wouldn\'t be surprised if Z could do that too) and such. And then comes along this big, beautiful mare named Zenyatta. I was literally 2 feet from her as she walked back to the barn, and I swear it didn\'t even look like she had just been in a race. What a magnificent looking animal. Something I will never forget and that alone made the trip worthwhile. I will remember this BC for a very long time.

We all have our opinions on HOY, synthetics, etc... Lets all agree on one thing....this past weekend was great theater and thrilling racing. I\'m still trying to come down off of that remarkable high I got on Saturday.

[Flighted Iron]

This subject gets more ridiculous with each post from guys like this.

Do any of you even consider the caliber of competition that Rachel faced?? Its not even comparable, that field Zenyatta just dusted is much better than any horse Rachel\'s connections have even thought about racing against.

It sounds as if you\'re genuinely pissed off here.I don\'t mean at me even though
you called me senseless.I meant your words.Your asking the board for me to be
ridiculous and then your accusing the board of being senseless that WE cannot
see how hard Z\'s had it.I think Rachels had it harder and done more.

Z\'s a great one no doubt.She\'s just not this years HOY.

[PapaChach]

P-Dub,

As a longtime board lurker, intermittent TG purchaser, and an unabashed East Coaster – I was bred, born, raised, and still live, less than ten miles from Saratoga Race Course, and as a baby, I once spent an afternoon on my father\'s knee watching Mickey Mantle hit the last home run he ever hit in the old Yankee Stadium – it is with some hesitation that I get involved in this discussion, but I step out of the shadows tonight to say my piece.

For openers, despite my deep East Coast roots, I long ago conceded defeat in the Easy Goer-Sunday Silence debate. I quite simply believe that by virtue of the superior athleticism that allowed him to run faster around turns, Sunday Silence was the better horse. Not to nitpick, but among the numerous horseplayers I know, my vote for Sunday Silence is met with universal derision, and not once have any of the Goer fans used speed figures to justify their love. I fully realize that the plural of anecdote is not data, but to a man, and in a few cases, to a woman, every single person I know who argues in favor of the Phipps horse insist that the track got him beat at Churchill, and that Day got him beat in Baltimore and again in Hallandale. Speed figures never enter their equations.

Speaking of riders, I have long appreciated your ardent defense of Mike Smith. Many summers ago, on a late August day, my best friend and I were leaving Saratoga as the horses loaded into the gate for the last race of the day. We decided to duck down to the fence, down by the finish line, to watch the race; it was a gorgeous, pleasantly warm, sun-splashed afternoon, probably not unlike the afternoon you had yesterday in Arcadia.

As the horses headed into the first turn, some trouble developed. Not far from where we stood, a rider was suddenly ejected from his mount and thrown many feet up in the air. We watched in horror as the rider flipped, flew through the air, and, after what seemed like minutes, landed in the grassy hedge with a loud thud. I turned to my best friend and said – I still remember it – "holy shit, that guy's dead."

We just stood there, waiting to see what was going to happen to that rider who'd been pitched into the air. Eventually, they got him into an ambulance and drove him away.

I'll never forget the sight, and the sound, of that rider getting tossed from his mount and landing with a sickening sound. It shook me to my core and made me question my participation in this game: for awhile that day, I feared that the rider in question had given his life for my entertainment, and I didn't feel good about that.

That rider, of course, was Mike Smith.

I realize that jockeys make mistakes, errors in judgment that sometimes cost us our wagered money, and I don't maintain that they are above criticism, but after what I saw that afternoon at Saratoga in August of 1998, I am loathe to complain about their efforts. As far as I am concerned, after what I saw that long-ago afternoon, Mike Smith has a lifetime pass to go as wide as he wants, whenever he wants, but he doesn't, and he certainly didn't in yesterday's Classic. He was one of the lucky ones; he lived to walk again, to ride again. Many others have fallen, or been thrown, and not had his luck. Still, seeing him atop Zenyatta with his arms raised to the heavens after the Classic yesterday put a smile on my face.

&&&

I initially regarded synthetic racing with suspicion, and then ambivalence. There seems something unnatural about it. The plastics are meant to be a kinder, gentler  version of dirt courses, but they play nothing like dirt; in general, they seem to negate the kind of advantage Sunday Silence employed so beautifully, namely, the ability to use sustained high speed to win the highest caliber races. And so it all seems confusing, and sometimes ugly; in the initial synthetic edition of the Pacific Classic, if I remember correctly, the winner required something on the order of two minutes and seven seconds to complete the mile and a quarter.  I remember scoffing at this with my East Coast buddies, and California racing, a once-feared breeding ground of lightning fast raiders who'd occasionally ship into town to mercilessly plunder our beloved New York stakes, seemed to recede into irrelevancy. Not that any of you out there cared, nor should you have, but we simply stopped paying attention.

But yesterday, several of us gathered 'round my living room and pooled our money together and we bet with both hands all afternoon. And there was not a complaint to be heard. No bitching about how it was fake racing, no whining about how the odds were stacked against our East Coast dirt horses. It was what it was: it was something we racing fans don't get nearly enough of, namely, a full day of competitive, interesting, full-field wagering opportunities. Yes, we factored the synthetic angle in, but we knew what we were getting. We knew the New York horses would hate it, we knew the races would play differently than they do here at home, and we adjusted our handicapping accordingly. We didn't feel like we had no clue as to what was going on; we felt like we were handicapping, and betting, on horse racing. We even used TG to make a score: we had the late pick three and pick four, and while I realize this was not classic TG handicapping, the horse that really made the pay-offs on those bets had number power in what we thought was an absolutely abysmal race for a putative Breeder's Cup race. To us, it looked like a "chaos race", and in that case, if you're playing picks, and using a lot of horses around a couple of singles in other races, you gotta throw in a horse with a number, right?  (Note: excuse the redboarding; for the record, we didn't make a lot of money on the day as the Juvey and Sprint winners wiped out a lot of our action.)

And the unanimous opinion in my living room was this: it was a hell of a lot better, and a hell of a lot more fun, than betting on a Breeder's Cup card from an Eastern track mired in the middle of a dismal late fall all-day driving rain storm, a la Monmouth 2007. (Not that I bet that one: I was busy that day, dealing with the fallout from a surgical procedure on my wife that went horribly awry.)

The Breeder's Cup powers-that-be were mocked and derided – and for all I know, they are a bunch of half-wits lucky to have avoided pissing all over their own shoes yesterday afternoon, it beats me – for having their signature event out there on the plastic two years in a row, but all I can say is this: from the comfort of my couch, it was nice to not have to think about the on-track weather. There's something to be said for conducting a day of racing under sunny skies and moderate temperatures.

&&&

As for Horse of the Year, well, honestly, I don't care all that much. A tie between the two fillies would be fine with me.

Yeah, for all I care, Noble's Promise is Horse of the Year; he was the lynchpin to a day of wagering, a few weeks ago, that gave this unexpectedly widowed father of three very young children the option of staying home with them until the middle one starts school next fall. He\'s my new favorite horse, and Willie Martinez is my new favorite jockey, What can I say? With some forethought and some assistance from useful connections within one's circle of family and friends, it is possible to live very well, thank you, in upstate New York, for not a lot of money.

Perhaps that's too cynical a view, but so be it. After what I've been through, frankly, I'm entitled.

If I had a vote – and of course I don't, and I never will – up until about six thirty Eastern time yesterday, I would have voted for Rachel without even thinking about it. She won over seven different racetracks. Day One to Day Three Sixty Five, she had the more ambitious campaign. Never has a three year old filly put up this kind of a season. Never.

But I gotta admit, Zenyatta's performance yesterday got me thinking. Yeah, it was one race. But what a race she ran. Clearly, synth or no, a better field than anything Rachel faced this year, and she won it easily, under trying circumstances. Smith said he still hasn't gotten to the bottom of her, and I'd tend to believe him. My guess is that the voting is dominated by Kentucky types who wouldn't vote for Zenyatta no matter what, but regardless, she ran a tremendous race yesterday, one for the ages, and capped off a tremendous day of racing.

Best wishes for an excellent week in Hawaii, and a tip of the cap for an excellent day for the West Coast.

[P-Dub]

PapaChach,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on a wide range of topics. I read it 3 times, and was thoroughly captivated each time.

Best wishes to you and your family, and thank you for the kind words. I get so worked up sometimes, that I just can\'t help myself. You have given me a new perspective on things and I can\'t thank you enough for that. Thanks for bringing an East Coast perspective to a West Coast guy.

Right now, as I finish writing this, I am watching the horses load into the gate for the Classic.  Its my first time seeing it on the HD. I am leaving for Hawaii in about 8 hours, and all I can think about is the Breeders\' Cup. I have attended many memorable events, this one ranks right at the top. Aloha for now.

[TGJB]

Papa-- that\'s a great post in every respect, one of the very best ever to grace this board. Bonus points for \"putative\". You will probably be surprised which section of the post I respond to.

One rainy night in my teens I was sitting in the lower right field seats at Yankee Stadium along with about 4,000 other people with nothing else to do that night-- the Yankees stunk. The night before they had a bigger crowd-- Denny McClain was pitching and Mantle was tied with Foxx for lifetime homers. McClain intentionally grooved one, Mantle hit it out, that was it for the public\'s interest in the Yanks. (I have to point out this was a long time before I became a Met fan, which happened when McCarver started announcing the games in the early 80\'s-- it was nice to hear someone talk about the game, not restaurants. I grew up a Brave fan-- first mitt \"Eddie Mathews\").

Anyway, I\'m out there in right field in the drizzle with my glove, and with one (1) other living human-- a Puerto Rican kid a little older than me. He\'s further towards the bullpen in right center, I\'m closer to the line. Sure enough, Mantle hits one, and it lands dead between us.It could have bounced left or right, but it went the other kid\'s way, he got the ball.

So an inning later these guys in suits come out and offer him an autographed ball in exchange for the one he caught, and he says f--k no, and goes home with it.  Somewhere there\'s a middle-aged Puerto Rican guy with the last ball Mickey Mantle hit for a home run, and nobody believes him.

[PapaChach]

TGJB,

Thanks.

Don\'t want to get too off-topic here, but I will ask my dad to clarify the details - I could swear he said it was an afternoon game, but it\'s been a long time since he told me the story, Perhaps I saw the homer the day before, or maybe one of Mantle\'s last milestone homers.

At the time (most of \'67 or 68: I was born up here in \'66 and we came back up in late \'68 I believe) we lived off Commonwealth Ave in the Bronx. The folks took me to Yankee games all the time. Apparently I (and my mother) slept through most of a doubleheader against the BoSox on a brutally cold day. My dad says the second game went 16 or 17 innings. Again, w/about 4,000 people in the stands.

Almost all of my good friends are rabid Mets fans, and they will occasionally tell me they \"can\'t believe\" I\'m a Yankee fan. I suppose this is some sort of backhanded compliment, but obviously, given the above my Yankee roots run deep!

[TGJB]

Certainly posible my memory was wrong and that it was an afternoon game. Also could have been rain delayed and dark because of the clouds.

[magicnight]

Yes, a night game. About 16,000 saw the Red Sox beat the Yankees. Yaz homered too. (Via the NYT archive). Reminds me that the hubbub that year was whether or not the AL batting champ would hit 300 (hence the focus on Yaz\'s average). Yaz finished at .301 to pick up a bargain basement batting crown. \'68 was also the year of Gibson\'s 1.12 ERA. They lowered the mound after this year.

Red Sox Beat Yanks, 4-3;; MANTLE SMASHES HOME RUN NO. 536 Yastrzemski Also Connects and Gets Three Hits to Raise Average to .306
By LEONARD KOPPETT
September 21, 1968, Saturday
Page 38, 471 words
If tight competition for worthwhile stakes, glamorous stars performing their special ties and exciting late-game situations make up good baseball entertainment, the crowd of 15,737 at Yankee Stadium last night got its money\'s worth while watching the Boston Red Sox defeat the New York Yankees, 4-3.

[TGJB]

To quote whoever it was, a lot of those 15,737 came disguised as empty seats.

[magicnight]

I\'m pretty sure back then the AL numbers were \"tickets sold\" while the NL counted the turnstile spins. So, yeah, no doubt there were a lot of empty seats in that 17K.

But notice how I got through that post without making any age-related cracks? Figure if Zen is in the running for HOY I might be able to have a crack at late-inning sainthood, so, I\'m on my best behavior.

[TGJB]

When I said teens I meant in months.

[magicnight]

That\'s one heck of a variant!

[P.Eckhart]

Why were there no rules available to deal with Queally striking the 3rd over twenty times down the stretch?