Rachel Retired !

[FrankD.]

I just heard it on the Mike Francesca show.

[miff]

Don\'t get it, her TG numbers say she\'s just as good as last year!


Rachel Alexandra, named the 2009 Horse of the Year after a 3-year-old campaign in which she defeated males in the Preakness, Haskell, and Woodward, has been retired, majority owner Jess Jackson announced in a news release Tuesday.

\"As you know, despite top training and a patient campaign, Rachel Alexandra did not return to her 2009 form,\" Jackson said in the release. \"I believe it's time to retire our champion and reward her with a less stressful life. We are delighted that she will retire healthy and happy to our beautiful farm in Kentucky.\"

Rachel Alexandra will be bred to Curlin, who won the Horse of the Year award for Jackson in 2007 and 2008.

\"Imagine what possibilities those two super horses might produce,\" Jackson said in the release.

[FrankD.]

She had a bullet at Oklahoma yesterday, fastest of 50 4f in 48.45
( 24:95, 23:50 ) galloped out in 1:01.09.

[TGJB]

Miff--

1-- Her figures were almost as good as last year\'s, on her best both years. If she was a sound 4yo they would either be better or the same without bounces. Also took her three starts to get close to her 3yo top, not a good sign.

2-- As I have pointed out a couple of times, she was having a problem with the first turn (we have her 5w,4w,3w,4w,3w in her 5 starts this year, despite racing in small fields). Not good.

[girly]

I think it\'s great that she can have some babies and start rolling around in the grass. She is such a magnificent animal and deserves this well earned rest! The Woodward will go down in history for sure, as one of the greatest races of all time.

[miff]

JB,
Those wide first turns enhanced her figs.Correct figs by methodology but not racetrack fast,hence she was getting beat by a few rather common fillys while getting fast figs.

Had Rachel had a ounce of unsoundness,she would have been retired many months ago.

Never developed a step at 4 and maybe those big 3 yr old efforts caught up to her.


Mike

[TGJB]

One of these days you\'re going to explain your idea of geometry to me.

[jbelfior]

They didn\'t listen to me. In July when I said to retire her before she gets embarrassed. .....(Persistently).......funny how the story broke on Francesca\'s show. A horse\'s ass announcing a horse\'s retirement.

Good Luck,
Joe B.

[Silver Charm]

I hope this is a lesson for fans and handicappers that its never a guarantee that they are coming back bigger stronger faster!

She ran like I\'ve never seen before last year with 20 length wins in Grade Ones and a parade of crushed next out winners.

This is probably a good thing since a big buildup for the BC and then probably laying an egg is not good for her legend!

[Uncle Buck]

Maybe Jackson can retire Brett Favre too? Please?

[jimbo66]

I have to have one last \"whine\", if only because Richie B would be disappointed with me if I didn\'t do it...

A special thanks to the connections of BOTH Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta for concocting the campaigns of likely the two best fillies in the last 20 years such that they never met on the race track, despite the fact that they both raced in 2009 and 2010 and despite the clamoring of the racing public and the supporters of both for such a meeting to happen.  

A special note to Richie B.  THIS is why I didn\'t understand all your posts where you stated that you preferred they hold off and meet in the BC Classic (and the great betting opportunity that this presented).  Because it was always a longshot to get both to the classic.  So we get NOTHING instead.  And we have to like it.

Who was better?  Who knows.  My bet would be that in 2009 Rachel wins at any distance on any dirt track but that in 2010 Zenyatta likely wins.  Rachel was more brilliant but Zenyatta\'s consistency at a very high level, is its own form of brilliance.  


Just a shame they never met on the track.  A real shame.

[P.Eckhart]

TGJB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One of these days you\'re going to explain your
> idea of geometry to me.


I\'ve asked about this before. Wouldn\'t it be worth finding an empirical solution to the ground loss issue because there could be more to it than a length lost on a bend is (effectively) worth a length at the line.

I\'ve already suggested using pairs of horses who reoppose with differing ground loss profiles to their first meeting. Many such matches would be required to smooth out the variance but hopefully a useful picture may emerge from the data. Or any better idea would suffice, so long as it was empirical.

[covelj70]

I think Jimbo has the issues nailed.

On both of their best days, Rachael would have beat her. Her best is better than Z\'s best.  However, Zenaytta is alot more consistant and always runs big so she would have won more than lost against Rachael over time.

Also agree that it\'s a real shame they never met.

The racing for the next 2 weeks is going to be insane.  Can\'t wait

[richiebee]

jimbo66 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
 
 
> A special note to Richie B.  THIS is why I didn\'t
> understand all your posts where you stated that
> you preferred they hold off and meet in the BC
> Classic (and the great betting opportunity that
> this presented).  Because it was always a longshot
> to get both to the classic.  So we get NOTHING
> instead.  And we have to like it.
 
Jim:

I am disinclined to argue with anything you\'ve said and give you credit
for putting the blame on both camps for preventing the great showdown.

I sometimes come off as the curmudgeonly yet irreverent protector of the
traditions of Racing, the preserver of the memories of the great runners
of the past and the great racing venues, but the truth is that the reason
I am still crazy about Racing after all these years is that I was bred on
both sides to gamble.

Simply stated, a race in which Rachel and Zen, each at odds somewhere near
even money, carrying nowhere near enough weight against 5 or 6 tomato cans
handpicked by their connections, just didn\'t tickle my fancy. The only intrigue
in a race which featured these two against a short field of fillies and mares
would be to see Calvin Borel\'s left boot scraping the inside rail on RA and Mike
Smith 12 wide on Zen (just joking P-Dub).

Rachel made her bones defeating males in a 3YO campaign which is a shade below
the two greatest 3YO campaigns I have witnessed, those of Secretariat and
Spectacular Bid, and her 3YO campaign is arguably the best since the Bid\'s 79
year, when he won what?  maybe 5 major Triple Crown preps before winning two
thirds of the Triple Crown.

Zenyatta won me over by defeating the best available males in the 09 BC Classic.
In my opinion these two had nothing to prove against their own gender and earned
the right to compete with the World\'s best non- turf horses in the 2010 BC  Classic.

I think we all agree that, taking Zen and Rachel at their best, Rachel is
advantaged up to 9 furlongs, Zen might be preferred at distances beyond that.
Rachel has a tactical speed advantage at any distance. Rachel is a faster looking
animal off her TGs with some mind boggling numbers. They both have what some
would call stage presence, though I do not believe that Racing\'s dysfunctional
powers that be would have been capable of creating enough buzz about the match up
of these two Amazons that might draw the non Racing fan in to see what all the
excitement is about.

Jim the only place where we really differ is that you\'ve been a bit tough on Team
Zen. If all goes according to plan on Saturday, Zen will take her place in the
gate at CD in November looking to capture her third straight BC event.

The big loss here is that RA would have been a stone cold bet against for me in
the BC Ladies at 3/5...

[miff]

One could argue that the only thing empirical in racing is that the horse that stops the clock first ran the fastest.Geometry is an over simplification of the ground loss issue, imo, as is the above statement, the horse that stops the clock first ran the fastest.

As to ground loss alone,I believe that all ground loss is NOT equal.For example, ground loss on the first turn(of a two turn race)which is travelled at a very slow speed is not nearly as relevant as the same ground loss on a first turn travelled at a much faster speed.The ground loss in both cases has the same value in the figure but is not nearly equally relevant when looking at the outcomes.There is no debate that the extra distance travelled is the same, running slow or fast.

To give equal ground loss \'value\' in the figure ignores a critical factor in racing which is that all things slow in a race are not as relevant as all things fast in a race.

You can count on one hand the number or horses that win while travelling very fast and wide into the first turn vs the much greater number of horses that win travelling very slowly and wide into the first turn.It\'s like 10-1 in favor of the slow travellers yet they get the same ground loss value in the figure.

Thats my geometry JB,admittedly not nearly as empirical as yours.


Mike