Always negative

[jimbo66]

The fastest filly of all time (at least on TG numbers) gets transferred to ownership that will actually put her in competitive races, like the Preakness, against horses that will make her run, generating enhanced publicity for the sport, great wagering opportunities, and potentially renewed interest in the Preakness, and all you read on this board is negative stuff about it.

Covelj,

I thoroughly enjoyed debating the DErby with you for weeks before the race, but don\'t take IWR\'s scratch out of the race as confirmation that fast horses break down, can\'t run back,etc.etc.  I know you can think of other examples, but there are also plenty of examples of it not happening.  Other horses bowed out of the derby in the weeks before with minor injuries, many of whom were not fast.  You own horses, you must know how brittle they are.  1200 pounds on skinny legs that should be supporting 1/4 of that weight at best.  

If Rachel runs in the Preakness, it is great news on all fronts IMO.  I will be very curious to see how much the male chauvinism of gamblers affects her odds.  Fillies beat colts all the time in Europe.  It is considered a rarity here.  Off the negative 4 and her previous races, she should be even money against the expected field in the Preakness, but I bet she is close to double that.

[covelj70]

I am so torn on all of this.

On one hand, I LOVE all of the publicity that her running in the Preakness would generate for the sport I love so much.

On the other hand, I really believe that she has a better chance of being around come breeders cup time if she takes a break here.

If she runs, I will be rooting like hell for here, this much I do know.

Should be an interesting week.

What kinds of odds are we giving that she runs in the Preakness?

[miff]

If she\'s doing really good and they don\'t race her,their fools,she\'s not going to be doing really good forever.


Bloodhorse:

Although it has not been confirmed that Rachel Alexandra will contend in the upcoming Preakness Stakes (gr. I) at Pimlico against the boys, Wiggins said he is fairly confident the Medaglia d\'Oro   filly will be in the starting gate come May 16.

"I'd be very surprised if she was not in there," he said. "That's just my opinion—I haven't heard what they're going to do, but I'd be surprised, because (the deal) went so fast that I think they had something in mind. She'll have to be supplemented, though, and if it's an over-filled race, the supplemented horses have the last shot to get in.

[Electrocutioner]

With regard to fillies beating colts \"all the time\" in Europe, while you do see fillies racing against males more often, it is only the very top ones who are competitive against colts. And the fillies also get considerable weight advantages. They still write many \"females only\" races in Europe. It isn\'t a question of chauvinism. Only the outstanding females are successful against the colts. In this case, Rachel surely qualifies.

[Thehoarsehorseplayer]

While one has to concede that entering Rachel in the Preakness would heighten interest in Preakness to maybe a heavyweight championship level, the risk one
runs, if anything happens to her, is goodnight racing.

Remember, last year\'s Congressional hearing was basically a whitewash, predicated on the notion that the easiest way to avoid an efficient hearing is to conduct an inefficient one.  There will be no cover this time.  The public will be outraged.

And for good reason. JB has, year in year out, documented the toll Triple Crown races take on horses.  Now you\'re advocating entering a fillie against colts off a monster new top on two weeks rest.  

It\'s such a recipe for disaster that I will say this: if Rachel runs in the Preakness and anything bad to her happens. her connections should be held criminally liable for animal abuse.

Which is not to say she can\'t win the race; she is truly a magnificent horse.  Still, she is a fillie running against colts.  And on the dirt.  In Europe fillies run against colts all the time, on the turf.  And even in America it\'s not all that unusual for distaffers to beat males on the turf.  But dirt racing is more demanding on the animals; forces them to dig deeper, to ignore more pain.  The irony being, the more of a champion a horse is the deeper it will dig, the more it digs the likelier it injures itself.

Because (and this is central to understanding horses racing) horses are basically pack animals.  Whose dominance in the wild is manifested by who leads the pack.  Horses instinctively will run themselves into the ground for a moment of glory.  Think here of the horse dropping to a 32,000 claimer with no recent form who makes the bold move and gets up at the wire. Visually, he looks like a lock to win next out at 32,000 again, but probably he\'ll be seeing 14,000 claimers before he sees the winning circle again.  This because he cashed in his class coupons in the 32,000 race he won.  That was the day he could be dominant and he willingly paid the physical price for being so.  Such is the nature of the horse.

Which brings us back to Rachel running in the Preakness.  In what should be a very demanding race for her (if only because of the spacing) she is going to give it her all.  She is a champion, she is going to dig as deep as she can.  And she will willingly compromise her well being to lead the pack home.  She will not pull herself up, or slow down, if she feels herself weakening.  She will try to persevere. And because she\'s running against colts she will have to dig that much deeper.  And she will dig, Dig, dig, dig, until maybe, courage tested to the breaking point, something snaps.

And then, the crocodile tears.  Listen, horses don\'t have the ability to protect themselves, humans must protect them. A responsibility which, surprisingly enough, requires some horse sense.  The connections want to run Rachel in the Belmont, fine.   Run her in the Preakness, on two weeks rest, off a monster new top,against the colts, you\'re playing Russian Roulette with the horse\'s life.

And this time there will be no forgiveness.

[Niall]

Cant disagree at all with THEHHP on the point re: Champion. Still see Gorgeous George climbing in the slop at Monmouth .... SNAP !! Impossible to predict when it will happen, but some are more obvious than others and this may very well fall into that category ...

[miff]

Very True Niall,

Incidentally, out of ALL the horses that ran a TG -3 or faster(or even huge new fast TG tops for that matter), how many broke down on the racetrack afterwards. What are their names??

Powerful stuff that Kool Aid!


Mike

[covelj70]

one thing not to forget in all of this is that there is still something for her to take on within her own gender.  How great would a race between Zenyatta and RA be?  Let\'s let her beat the girls before she takes on the boys?

[covelj70]

Mike, we aren\'t talking about breaking down, we are talking about getting injured and not running more than 2 more lifetime races after the big effort like so many of the other young 3 year olds that have run back quick after the big effort.

Look, I am no genius (as I proved once again with my derby wagers) and I do love Kool Aid but how many more times do we need to see horses that run big figures get knocked out before you stop attirbuting the knock outs to a whole bunch of random coincidences and consider the logical alternative, that they aren\'t meant to run that fast and then come back so quick.

We just added two more to the list with Quality Road and IWR.  You will say the quarter crack has nothing to do with the big effort just as Barabaro\'s breakdown had nothing to do with the big effort, just like Smarty\'s Belmont and subsequent retirement had nothing to do with the big eforrts just like Big Brown\'s foot injuries having nothing to do with the big effort.

Again, I have pretty much proved lately that I am a moron but there seems to be a pretty good mounting body of evidence on the other side of your argument that big efforts don\'t knock horses out, no?

[jma11473]

I understand the big breakdowns we\'ve seen on the dirt, but then 100% of the big races the public pays attention to are on the dirt. Where is the proof that dirt racing causes more pain, or whatever thehoarsehorseplayer said? I am totally sympathetic to the cause of the animal, but pretending to know the pain they feel is silly. Also, if we don\'t want to put them through \"pain\", all racing should be banned today.

[miff]

Cov,

All types can get knocked out from an effort that hurts them, it could a TG 5 or a TG -3. The reason you and others think the way you do is because you are paying most of your attention to the highest level of racing and not All of racing. There are many more breakdowns/over the tops etc at the lower level(mainly because there are many more lower level horses racing overall, simple law of probabilities overall)

It\'s not that simple, you and others are trying to establish something from a number on a piece of paper which trainers in the Hall of Fame who spend countless hours/years around these animals every day,cannot.When a horse is over the top, when it might break down, etc is near impossible to tell. Pure hit and miss especially when a horse seems to be doing great and then runs awful or breaks down.

Go over and talk to Alan Jerkens about some of your beliefs on rest,spacing, stress/efforts et al and see what he tells you, serious, you\'ll thank me.

Lastly your statement that \"horses that run big figs get knocked out\" is so far off the wall that it\'s pathetic. Would you like to make a serious wager that for every horse that you say got knocked out by figs, I\'ll name two or more that did not. We\'ll use TG  figs for the last 5 years.Let me know.



Mike

[Uncle Buck]

What I woukld ask is this. Did Jess Jackson and Steve Assmussen put Curlin at risk or mis manage him? Did they have the horse\'s best interest and the sport of king\'s best interest while campgining Curlin? I say YES.

Their track record together is positive and results don\'t lie.

[jimbo66]

Covelj,

You are mixing a lot of horses into a group that I don\'t think belong mixed together.  

Barbaro broke down and eventually died.  You can make an argument that the big effort was part of it.  

Smarty Jones was retired with a superficial injury that occurred after he was a victim of quite a bit of \"race-riding\" in the Belmont, where he fought off multiple pace challenges at a distance he was not well suited for.  If he wasn\'t worth so much, he would not have been retired.

Quality Road had a quarter crack, which as an owner, you must know happens all the time.  He missed a few days of training.  Not a big deal, unless it happens a week before the Derby.

I am sorry and I say this with respect, but it sounds completely ridiculous to me when you talk about putting Rachel Alexander away for late in the year and the Breeders Cup.  If the sport is down to that, and everybody starts believing what you and JB and others believe about big efforts ruining the horses, then the sport should end.  it isn\'t a sport anymore.  You have to be careful not to run fast when you win, but if your horse runs fast, take 4 months off.  

On a related note, I hope Rachel Alexander doesn\'t run in the Breeders Cup, She would prove nothing by running in that race against Zenyatta on carpet.  Run against Zenyatta on dirt somewhere.  Or against the colts in the Preakness.  Who cares about carpet results.  Zenyatta, until proven otherwise, is a carpet runner.

[miff]

\"What I woukld ask is this. Did Jess Jackson and Steve Assmussen put Curlin at risk or mis manage him? Did they have the horse\'s best interest and the sport of king\'s best interest while campgining Curlin? I say YES.

Their track record together is positive and results don\'t lie.\"

Buck,

A very good point, the horse was sound, a hard hitter and they raced him liberally. Now IF he would have broken down, you would hear the Kool Aid drinkers telling you it was from all those negative figs.

Mike

[jimbo66]

Agreed.  100%.

They were great sportsmen.  The fact that they had the best dirt horse in the world, sent that horse to Dubai to run, brought him back and tried him on turf with the goal of running him in the Arc if he proved good enough, and then when he didn\'t, they ran him on the carpet at Santa Anita, proved to this gambler that they are sportsmen.

To go back furter on Asmussen, how many trainers would have run Curlin in the Preakness after getting a rough trip in the Derby and having three grueling efforts before the derby.  I can still remember the Preakness analysis (which I agreed with) saying that he was a bet against in the Preakness and figured to go backwards.  I may have to do a search on the board here and see if Covelj was calling for a freshening after the Derby, pointing him to his 4 year old year.