Zenyatta

[sekrah]

We admire her consistancy, but compared to the greats that\'s she\'s being lumped in with, she is slow, why is that controversial?

[sekrah]

Wow P-Dub..   So if Zenyatta is comfortable, she runs a 4 point new top as a 6 year old mare?

Amazing..  Sounds like a Cody Autrey claimer shipping into Delaware Park.

[Footlick]

No controversy.  You believe that speed figures measure greatness.  That\'s why there was all this brouhaha about Quality Road, I guess.  But there is more than a speed figure that makes a horse great.  Greatness can\'t be measured by a speed figure. There are intangables that figures can\'t measure. You said that people admire her consistency.  But not really, because she doesn\'t run fast figures, so her greatness is questioned because she is too slow.  Being able to run consistently over a long period of time is a form of greatness that hasn\'t really been seen with most horses.  I have never said that she is an equal to Secretariat, Citation, Buckpasser, Man O War, Dr Fager, Damascus, etc.  But neither is Quality Road nor Blame.  But Blame was only a nose better than the slow horse and Quality Road was nowhere to be seen.  It\'s the lack of respect for her.  The \"no matter what she did she is still slow\" attitude because a speed figure is the determining factor.  This is the last I\'m going to post about it because I\'m very tired of it.  It\'s sad that she gets little respect because her \"figures\" aren\'t scorching.  But, whatever. That\'s the way it is.  I know I am on a speed figure board. I get it.

[Leamas57]

She should run grass routes. She would be a natural with her style and maybe last a few more years that way. Hell, run her in the Arc. They\'ll call her Joan of Arc and then she can be the greatest mammal that ever lived since Moby Dick.

Leamas

[martoon]

QR was in the 3 path along the front stretch.  Watch there are 2 horses inside him just behind him.  This defense of QR\'s performance is crazy.  He was scared of the rail more than being affected by bad ground there.  You think he was jerking his head to the right after the first 3 steps of the race because he was tired?  People have  to stop propping up this miler who got run down by Blame in their last match up and finished dead last in this one.  Yeah he\'s really fast I agree and really one dimensional.  The easiest toss in the race.  And dead rail or not he quit before any excuse for tiring...  if there was a dead rail it was affecting horses in the stretch and he already quit by the time he got there.

[JimP]

On the positive side, QR did stay longer this year than he did in the Classic last year.

[MonmouthGuy]

I thought Johnny V was trying to bring him off the rail in the first few steps of the race, and then when First Dude got position and squeezed him back in, the race was over for him after 6F on the dead rail. The three US horses on the lead all X\'d badly with decent looking patterns.

[TGJB]

Sekrah-- comment on the issues, stop characterizing the comments or commenters.

[TGJB]

First of all, Coa said right after the race he did it specifically to get BD off the rail.

On another front, unless I was watching a different race, QR was on the rail the whole way. Couldn\'t see well enough to know where Blame was.

[sekrah]

Wrong martoon..   QR was pinned on the rail from the first turn through the middle of the 2nd turn when he threw in the towel.   He spent 5-6 furlongs there up near the leaders.

[mjellish]

I don\'t know where you get that QR was in the 3 path.  In the early stages he got out from the rail, but he was quickly race ridden and pinned back along the rail by the time they hit the first turn.  He then stayed there the rest of the race.  Given how well documented QR\'s dislike of being stuck inside horses was, it shouldn\'t come as a surprise to anyone that he would be race ridden like that.  I don\'t think this guy is really a 1 1/4 horse to begin with, meaning I don\'t think he can beat top notch field at that distance without having a lot of things go in his favor.  Now add to that that he has been backing up this year, drew inside for this with two fast horses to his immediate outside and that the rail was about as dead as you will ever see on any track...  It can\'t possibly come as a shock to anyone that he finished up the track.  I can understand using him as a saver, but that\'s about it.    

Speaking of the dead rail, the maintenance team had ample time to fix this by Friday, and most certainly by Saturday.  There\'s no excuse for not doing that, and I can\'t believe it was an oversight.

And speaking of the race itself, I thought Zenyatta was going to get me at the end there and bust me out.  Considering how much she disliked having dirt kicked back in her face early and the traffic issue she faced late, I think she accounted for herself very well.  

Looking back at her career, we can question her competition all we want.  But I\'ve never seen a true closing horse like her seem to be so unaffected by early pace.  Perhaps the carpet she usually ran on helped her with that, but I certainly can\'t take anything away from her in this defeat.

As an aside, I thought Morning Line ran one hell of race as well in defeat.

[HP]

Another killer in the Sprint was that the other horse...the Lake horse...did not get out.  So BD really had his own way.  If BD got pushed on the lead it might have been a different story.  

I\'m using \"mighta\" so you can\'t nail me on \"woulda, coulda, shoulda.\"  HP

[Lost Cause]

HP Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Another killer in the Sprint was that the other
> horse...the Lake horse...did not get out.  So BD
> really had his own way.  If BD got pushed on the
> lead it might have been a different story.  
>
> I\'m using \"mighta\" so you can\'t nail me on
> \"woulda, coulda, shoulda.\"  HP

My whole take on the sprint was that Big Drama would get used up dueling on the inside..When that did not happen I knew I was dead..

Can the dead rail explain Girolamo\'s pitiful performance?

[Badride]

God....   That horse was a complete toss.  He is so phoney

[JimP]

Bad, since you had all these phonies figured out you must have really nailed this BC. How well did you do? What were some of your bigger scores?