I don't know where you get angry from, just amazed that people for a second really feel that horses should be running on wax, plastic used carpet and what ever else they put in that crap, it just isnt natural. Horses have been racing and champions have been crowned on dirt since the inception of horse racing. To think that synthetics have any place in horse racing has to come from a person that really doesnt care about the history of horse racing or hasnt been in the game long enough to know or realize that natural dirt is the only surface that horses, who have been bred for thousands of years to do, should be racing on.

I never said that Zenyatta's 4 wins before the BC were spectacular. But there were reasons why she didn't win by huge margins. First of all, she seems to pretty much just do what she needs to do. She runs to her competition. She pretty much just toys with them. And in the race she won by a nose, that was simply jockey error. Mike Smith rode her too confidently and gave her too much to do.

In addition, some of her races were actually much better than they appear. For example, take her win on May 23rd in the Milady. Watch that race. The race doesn’t look that good on paper and it doesn’t even look that good on video if you don't watch it carefully. But it was actually an incredible performance. Garret Gomez was on Life Is Sweet in the race. He knew that Zenyatta was the horse to beat so Gomez had Life Is Sweet off the rail going down the backstretch to try to force Zenyatta to go inside. It worked. Zenyatta went inside and then Gomez let Life Is Sweet go and Zenyatta was forced to check. So Zenyatta checks going into the far turn and after she checks, she is about 10 lengths back.

Anyway, by the time they hit the stretch, she basically had the lead. She didn’t quite have the lead because she went really wide but she was within a length or so of the lead. If she didn’t go so wide she would have had the lead at the top of the stretch. So she basically made up 10 lengths around the turn. It was unbelievable. Considering that she is a big, lumbering horse, I would have never thought that she could accelerate that quickly. It was amazing. Mike Smith totally mis-timed his move. When you make a premature, wide move like that and gun the horse around the turn, your horse will totally flatten out in the stretch. If the finish line was at the 1/8th pole, that wouldn’t be a bad move. But since the finish line is not at the 1/8th pole, it is a big mistake for a rider to time a wide move as if the finish-line is at the 1/8th pole. The horse will have nothing left for the final 1/8th of a mile. This is especially true if the move is a wide move. A premature move on the rail is not nearly as costly as a premature wide move.

Anyway, her winning margin would have been much bigger that day if she didn’t check going into the turn and then make that totally premature wide move. It was actually a pretty amazing performance on her part. By the way, you can’t really blame Mike Smith for making that move because he knew that Life Is Sweet was the horse to beat and he wanted to get the jump on her.

Or be from Europe

And I dont think thoroughbred racing goes back "thousands of years" nor has it always been contested on dirt. You see over in Europe they run on this green stuff called grass....

So now you are saying that we should do away with turf racing.

Says who? I never knew you were the sole definitive voice of horseracing.

You're pretty smart there Chuck, what college did you go to?

The discussion is about dirt racing, keep up.

Its my Spa catholic education kicking in.

be proud of your Arizona Wildcats :D

I think I scored 38 points against them in CYO.

I agree with you that RA went much too fast early in both the Preakness and the Woodward. I said that in a previous post in this thread. She ran good in both of those races.

With regard to the Haskell, she ran great but it was in the slop, so it's kind of hard to compare that race to a race on a fast track.

Your responses seem like personal attacks. You categorize people as "total jokes" for having a difference of opinion. OPINIONS. Which, by the way, has been what racing has thrived on for "thousands of years". The opinion that my horse is faster than your horse. My opinion is that Zenyatta is a better race horse than Rachel Alexandra. Unfortunately we will never know. You insinuate that people who are in Zenyatta's corner are pro-synthetics or don't care about racing? I've been involved with the game for over 30 years in one way or another so I'm very secure in what I know and understand about it. Frankly, I could care less who wins Horse of the Year. I saw both of them run and I consider myself lucky. It's a fun argument until someone like you comes along.

The history of football also had players in leather helmets.......
I'll leave it up to you to provide the snide comment.

I stand corrected... yea she sure does love CD surface, and a little help from mother nature sure wouldn't lower her chances!!

They arent what they once were but there is no way that happened.

I'll be proud if they can beat the Cal Commies this weekend.

I was a LEGEND. Led St. Anthonys to the Albany Diaosesis Championship...
I averaged 31 points 17 rebounds 7 blocks a game.

where did you play in college? Memphis?

LOL...I did not play after Junior year at Schenectady High...I will point out, thats the home of Pat Riley.. and a few decent College hoops players.

That was an utterly f.ucking retarded comparison.