you could have just said this instead of the long paragraph:

The owners are chickens.


Seriously? There is no upside to winning a G1 against males? That is absolutely incorrect.

There is no upside in winning your 15th race against the same crappy females in the same crappy situation (aka the Zenyatta Stakes).

The owners are such chickens that it almost makes you root for her to lose so maybe they will actually take some chances with their horse..

yes, you can get a very nice view of the Atlantic Ocean from Arapahoe! Thinking about making it my next vacay destination for that reason!

It's 1700 miles. That's a pretty long trip.

sure by car it is.. not by plane.

it takes about the same amount of time to fly there than it does to drive track to track in cali with that traffic.

its like a 3 1/2 hour flight. its not something that is a big deal. top horses do it all the time.

Unless you love quarter horses (as I learned to when I went two weeks ago, 5-5 exactas) don't bother. Although the 1M 70 horses set faster fractions than in the Whitney sometimes.

Considering they are running in the BC Classic, I don't think there is any real upside to running in the Goodwood. If she can beat the boys in the BC Classic for the second year in a row and finish her career 20 for 20, she will be immortalized forever. I don't think winning the Goodwood would really add anything to that legacy. It all comes down to this year's BC Classic.

If she's 20 for 20 with 2 wins in the BC Classic, I doubt anyone will look at her PP's and question why she didn't run in the Goodwood.

:tro:

"Only downside"...that sums it up. Actually facing a challenge and losing is considered downside in their mind. It's not about PROVING you are the best, it's all about perpetuating this fraud of a record. The horse isn't a fraud, she's a great mare, but the record is.

They get the horse up at 3:00am. Then she has a one hour drive to Ontario Airport. They make you get to the airport early and then the horse has to sit at the airport for another hour. Then you have a 3 1/2 hour flight. Then you arrive at Hot Springs Airport and have another short van ride. It's at least a 6 hour deal altogether. It's not going to kill a horse but it's not something I would want a horse to be doing every couple of months.

Heck some say Oaklawn is East of the Mississippi :zz:

I like the part where he said:

"We have to decide the right decision."

He's completely right about that. They also need to choose the right choice and formulate the right formulation.

She will be facing the biggest challenge possible in the toughest race of the year in the BC Classic.

You can't say the record is a fraud. She's running in grade I after grade I.

As I said in another thread about a month ago, you guys are using a totally different standard to measure her than other great mares. Personal Ensign ran 10 of her 13 lifetime races at Belmont. She ran once at Saratoga and once at Monmouth. So out of her 13 lifetime races, 12 were in New York and 1 was in New Jersey. She only left the area once to run in Kentucky. And how many times did she face the boys? I think it was once. Yet I've never heard anyone complain that Personal Ensign didn't travel enough or didn't face the boys enough.



That being said, I still understand where you are all coming from. The grade 1s against fillies on the west coast are not very challening races for Z. As others have said, these races are almost like exhibitions. It is somewhat boring to watch Z beat up on medicore fillies. I agree with that. I see where you're all coming from. I understand why you would be frustrated. I don't blame you. But by the same token, I understand why the connections are doing what they are doing and I can't really fault them at this point. If they would have refused to face RA in the AB earlier in the year, then I would have faulted them. But they were actually eager to face RA. At this point, it's different. They are very close to their goal and they don't want to do anything to screw it up. I can't blamethem . I see where they're coming from. I also see where you are all coming from and I understand your frustration.

Rupert, with all due respect, you do understand that synthetics didn't exist anywhere in the USA aside from in the confines of Michael Dickinson's brain in 1986-1987 or so, right?

Yes, you definitely can. Again with the "Grade I" nonsense. How many legitimate Grade I horses has she beaten in her Grade I's this year? Stop being ridiculous.

I'd have to imagine at some point we'll see something like G1S (similar to G1T) in the stakes schedules to annotate that a particular race is run on a third, decidedly not dirt or turf surface.

In any event, the ludicrousness of this fear of traveling mentioned several times now by Shireffs is particularly magnified when one looks at the PP's of some of Shireffs' other "stars" in the synthetic track era.

If Z had never run on real dirt, people would have a right to wonder if she would be the same horse on the dirt. But she's run twice on dirt and she won easily both times.

Let's pretend we still had real dirt in California. Do you think the criticism of Z would be any less? I don't think so.

I agree that many of her grade 1s have been very weak fields. But on a horse's resume, a grade I is a grade I. I'd be thrilled to buy a mare and win a bad grade I. A mare's value goes through the roof when they win a grade I.

It's not as if there are great mares out there sitting on the sidelines. Every owner wants to win a grade I because it makes the value of their horse go up by 5x. If there were any mares whose connections thought they could beat Z in these grade 1s, they'd be there.

Just to repeat what I said in an edited post earlier, I understand where you are all coming from. The grade 1s against fillies on the west coast are not very challening races for Z. As others have said, these races are almost like exhibitions. It is somewhat boring to watch Z beat up on medicore fillies. I agree with that. I see where you're all coming from. I understand why you would be frustrated. I don't blame you. But by the same token, I understand why the connections are doing what they are doing and I can't really fault them at this point. If they would have refused to face RA in the AB earlier in the year, then I would have faulted them. But they were actually eager to face RA. At this point, it's different. They are very close to their goal and they don't want to do anything to screw it up. I can't blame them . I see where they're coming from. I also see where you are all coming from and I understand your frustration.

Her dirt wins have been her best wins IMO. You can't change who shows up to face her, if there wasn't so many graded stakes races then there would be competitive races, why does everyone have such a hard on for her to ship across the country. I don't see people shipping from NY all the way to California every single day.

When she drills Rachel Alexandra they will blame something or someone. When she wins the BC Classic this year, people will still find something comedy to say. Its a tiresome argument.

Really? So now the discussion is about broodmare value? Nice deflection. We're talking about level of competition, and it has been piss poor. Period. Enough with the excuses.