2009 BC Classic - Zenyatta?

You certainly are entitle to your opinion, and you make a good case. However, in my opinion I feel Zenyatta would dominate this field. Zenyatta who won the Ladies' Classic last year on Santa Anita's synthetic Pro-Ride surface will be extremely tough to beat. I'm confident that she will break into her famous long stride with her ears pointing upward galloping past the others heading first across the finish line. Even though you're right about her winning beyer, and the fact it wasn't great in Lady's Secret, many will tell you it doesn't come close to doing her performance justice. Zenyatta typically trails all her rivals until she blows past them with a powerful late move. Zenyatta comes from off the pace, sometimes by double-digit lengths, and wins fairly close finishes, that's her style to be close.

Zenyatta now racing against the boys for the first time, when she wins, history would be made, and I'm a sucker for history...and she'd certainly make a strong case for Horse of the Year. It is said her Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith has endorsed testing her against male competition in the Classic. I think Zenyatta could beat the males as well, there are some strong contenders in the Classic though. I think Summer Bird is a Major contender, but not sure if he'll like the synthetics, and Richard's Kid, who loves synthetic and the distance. And, finally one of my favorites, Einstein, he loves the track and distance too. I'm confident all four will be in the money..

Regarding Rachel Alexandra & Zenyatta - It’s the race that every thoroughbred fan wants to see. Zenyatta, the 5-year-old mare from the West, against Rachel Alexandra, the 3-year-old filly from the East. However, early this month it was said that the race between the two is not on the schedule for anytime soon but, according to John Shirreffs, (the trainer of Zenyatta), the two owners have talked about it. Jerry Moss, Zenyatta’s owner, and Jess Jackson, who has Rachel, did meet and talk about it last month. Shirreffs said he didn’t know what came out of the meeting and, if he did, he wasn’t saying. Zenyatta, as you know is scheduled to run in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Rachel is not in training right now and is in Kentucky.

Shirreffs said he hopes the Breeders’ Cup is not her last race.

Zenyatta is set to go to the breeding shed in 2010 but could run again before that happens. Whether or not that is against Rachel remains to be seen.

In closing, I enjoy watching both Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra, both have total different running styles making them both very interesting to watch. And, with that, the fact that the ladies have very different running styles also makes a match-up intriguing to race fans. Rachel Alexandra is a speed horse who normally is on the lead, and Zenyatta comes from off the pace, sometimes by double-digit lengths, and wins fairly close finishes. Since we are unsure, at this point if they will ever meet..but, should the two ever meet in a race Zenyatta would have to come and get 'Rachel'. Remember Zenyatta being the older horse and having more experience will always have the edge.

Whatever happens, neither horse has anything to prove.

Zenyatta has a good chance to win the Classic and be HOTY. Just check the Goodwood and Lady's Secret races. The Goodwood was run at 1:48.39 and the male horses here were all out, jockeys flailing their whips, pushing their horses to the max. In the Lady's Zen's time was 1:42.89 not even whipped and ridden out. She wasn't even running.

There is the big difference!! Even Rachel had a hard time at the grade 2 Woodward against a grade 2 Macho Again. She was whipped 21 times. That is probably more whipping on Rachel than Zenyatta's been whipped in her entire racing career.

Look there is not a single horse from that grade 2 Woodward in the Classic. Tells you how weak that Woodward was.

1. Zenyatta is definitely going to have to have her running shoes on to win the Classic. Is she up to it? Well, unlike you, I don't find her Beyers worrisome. She comes from 'way out of it and doesn't seem inclined to do much more than is necessary to win, which means she isn't going to put up awe-inspiring Beyers. She's a big, tough mare, she's as game as they make them, and I'm confident that unless something goes wrong, she'll be digging in and doing her best at the end of the Classic.

2. This is a question my friends and I have been arguing over. I think that a lot of voters are going to give their votes to Rachel Alexandra no matter what happens in the Classic. It's pretty hard to vote against a filly that has done nothing but win, win, win, against the best males of her crop, in spectacular fashion. And some voters are going to hold it against Zenyatta that she didn't go east and race on dirt surfaces, against stronger/more varied opposition, and that this is the first/only time she's raced against males.

I believe that Rachel Alexandra has the votes to get Horse of the Year and I don't think anything that happens in the Classic is going to change that. If Zenyatta wins the Classic, then I think the vote will be closer but will still go to Rachel Alexandra.

Myself, I wish that this was a question that could have been answered on the track. In a perfect world, Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta would have raced against each other several times this year, on both dirt and synthetic surfaces, on the east coast and the west coast and in between. But it isn't a perfect world.

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I guess whatever happens we'll have to be content that this year we got to see performances from three horses that will go down in history: Rachel Alexandra, Zenyatta, and Sea the Stars. It was hoping for too much that we'd see them all in the same race.

I think that Rachel Alexandra should get the HOY regardless on how Zenyatta does in the BC classic. Rachel, is the better filly out of the two and I think if she was in the race that Zenyatta would not beat her.

First of all one of the answerer's here on a question I asked about Zenyatta said Rachel Alexandra was "ducking" Zenyatta. That could not be further from the truth. Jess Jackson, Rachel Alexandra's owner said the effects of running his star Curlin last year on that pro-ride garbage is why he declined to run Rachel.

In my years of growing up around thoroughbreds it absolutely boggles my mind to think some actually consider Zenyattas feats as good or better than Rachel's.

Rachel won five Grade 1 races, 3 against males, and on different tracks. She won the Kentucky Oaks by 20 1/4 lengths and the Mother Goose by 19.

Rachel earned a 116 Beyer Speed Figure winning the Haskell over males at Monmouth Park, that's about 3 lengths better than Zenyatta's best fig which was a 108 in September of 2008!

Zenyatta on the other hand has always benefited from the home field advantage and artificial surfaces in every single race of her career, except only once, where she ran at Oaklawn. Two starts back, she won by struggling to beat a 25-1 shot by a head in a 7 horse field. In her last 4 races, all have been 6 or 7 horse fields and has never faced a field of more than 8 other than her first start and maiden win.

She was sent off as favorite at less than even money in her last 8 starts, which shows she wasn't beating very good horses, but mediocre California fillies.

Zenyatta does NOT hit the board or even make the superfecta in this race, she finishes up the track.

My choices are:

10 Rip Van Winkle

5 Twice Over

3 Summer Bird

2 Quality Road

These are the fastest horses, but the problems are Summer Bird and Quality Road have never raced on that junk and neither have Rip Van Winkle or Twice Over. However, as we saw last year turf horse Raven's Pass did take to the surface after coming in with very, very big European Racing Post ratings numbers, that being the case history could repeat as both Rip Van Winkle and Twice Over fit the Raven's Pass model to a tee.

Curlin was the beaten favorite last year and Zenyatta will be this year.

Steve Crist, an excellent handicapper and editor in chief of the Daily Racing Form, noted in his blog on October 10 ...

"Before Zenyatta's fans start howling about her preliminary BSF of 97, allow me to repeat the following guidelines: A speed figure represents how fast a horse ran from point A to point B relative to the speed of the racing surface on a particular day, is not an overall performance rating, and does not measure how hard a horse was ridden or what kind of a trip it had. But there is simply no arguing that a mile and a sixteenth in 1:42.89 (Lady's Secret) is a significantly slower performance than a mile and an eighth in 1:48.39 (Goodwood).

Zenyatta ran her final sixteenth in 6.23 seconds. Say that she could have sustained that for another sixteenth, tack another 6.23 on to her final time, and you get a projected 9f final time of 1:49.12, which is 0.73 seconds (roughly four lengths) slower than the Goodwood and -- perhaps surprisingly -- right about what Mine That Bird ran while beaten 3 3/4 lengths in the Goodwood." http://cristblog.drf.com/crist/

Her BSF's are not only "relatively low" --- she has the LOWEST last race BSF in the entire field!

I'd love to see what odds Vegas or a bookmaker would give to have Zenyatta finish last.

So I will be looking to beat Zenyatta, if she does win, it seems she'll be 3-1 or less so it will be no big loss for me IF she does. I will be spending the next day and a half or so trying to figure the best or most clever way to beat her in the wagering; perhaps box the four horses I mentioned in the exacta or maybe make my first show bet in many years as Breeders' Cup show pools can be interesting.

Rip Van Winkle's odds may be a tad low so at this time my most probably selections are Twice Over and Summer Bird.

You have a closed mind friend. If Zenyatta should win the B.C. Classic she truly deserves HOY. Rachel refused to come out west and meet the best, therefore she deserves NO consideration for HOY in my view. You know the old saying actions speaker louder than words, well it applies here. Zenyatta a perfect 13-13 lifetime, truly one of the greatest of all time, she'd whip Rachel on dirt,grass, synthetic, concrete, asphalt, whatever surface they choose, truly a GREAT racehorse.

Summer Bird .. Never go by the Beyer Speed figures. It's just a man guessing like the rest of em'. Jess Jackson, is a crook, and won't run Rachel A in Cali, because of bankrupt issues with Magnum inc.

Take a authentic complicated seem on the Euro invaders; the synthetic floor will back play nicely for those delivery over from the turf campaigns. And take a pair of bucks and play Radiohead contained in the Juvenile Turf.

I think she has a good chance of winning it. she did really well last year at the breeders cup fillies. i know she is going to up agianst males but she is an amazing horse. and i think she deserves HOY she should have gotten it last year but it went to curlin. but i hope she does win the breeders cup.

Gio Ponti for the upset !!