That was electric...

Calvin must have been clucking like crazy.

If Barry Abrams was her trainer than she would run and lost in the Oaks, then run and lost in the derby, then run her next weekend in a turf race. Run her 15 more times then retire her and then breed her to Unusual Heat.

He spent several seconds pointing to the stable connections and smiling, patting the horse, giving the thumbs up to the crowd.

Then he got to the sixteenth pole and had to ride out "pretty" for the win pic ;)

I was being sarcastic, but you are being very acurate:tro: :tro: :wf :wf

Thats all i could think about was Secretariat as she was opening up down the lane. Another good question is did smoeone take a similar picture of her from inside the rail showing the other horses far back.

interesting question i guess. altho some would call it blasphemous. fact is tho-today's victory margin was the largest since 1910--and that's the earliest they have records on the Oaks....

Borel is absolutely bush league with all those antics. It draws away from the filly. Thank god the guy can ride because he would be a Wendy's drive through specialist otherwise.

Just watched it on NTRA. Breathtaking!! How tall is she? I thought I had read that she is a giant. She sure looked like one helluva big girl!

Well tomorrow Borel will have to put up his #1 finger 20 times when he eases MINE THAT BIRD last to the wire.

Hey now, he's a nice guy. Nobody gets between me and my Calvin. ;)
http://redriverautographs.files.word...vin-klein1.jpg

He is really nice.

As silly as I thought the Bravo coverage of the Oaks was overall, I got a bit weepy watching Borel holding the little Rachel in the winner's circle (a Make a Wish child who, I assume, wanted to meet the equine Rachel). Very sweet of him and the rest of the connections to do.

Wow.

It was a tremendous performance, but let's not carried away.
Part of what made Sec's Belmont so great was that Sham was a very good horse. The horses she destroyed today are nowhere close to being as good as Sham.
Still, she is darn good. No question about that.

http://www.stonewallstallions.com/ Check out the homepage for the Medaglia D'Oro folks. I'm gonna guess they didn't start prepping this graphic in the last four hours, but we'll give em credit for at least some degree of modesty. ;) Congratulations guys, I hope you throw a big party. She's something special.

Listen, I'm not trying to take anything away from this filly....she is very talented, and very good.
But if you look at the times from the Louisville Distaff, doesn't her race look a little less impressive than it did when you simply watch her demolish the opponents she faced today?

Louisville Distaff: 1:36.68 (mile) - Last half furlong in 6.07
Kentucky Oaks: 1:36.71 (mile) - Last furlong in 12.16


For those that are good at calculating these things, any idea what the difference in speed figures will be for Miss Isella and One Caroline compared to RA?

I'll just say WOW. I know she didn't beat much of anything at all, and the fact that nobody was going on flattered the stretch from visually....but still, wow. She does it so easily and all by herself.

I kinda took it just the opposite.
Like saying I just have to sit up here
and act like a monkey, this machine drives
itself.

I think the big difference between the two was in the distaff those horses were all out, RA was breezing effortlessly. There was no need for RA to go any faster

We often hear about how a horse could have gone faster if asked and more often than not, it's wrong. You'd have to think that in her case, it's true. She ran effortlessly down the lane. Looked like she wasn't even running as hard as she did in her last work. And she still went only .23 slower than the stakes record. Those fillies in the Louisville were doing it an all-out drive and also in a race that was 1/16th shorter.

how soon we forget Rags to Riches? and 8 Belles:(

Bit of a misconception. . .

Are you serious? Neither of them could compare to Rachel. I might be missing someone but I think she's the best I've seen since Go for Wand and Bayakoa.

eight belles, rest her soul, had nothing on this filly. as for rags...i'd take rachel over rags to riches.

not in this particular case. rachel looked to be loping home.
she came close to the record today, she took two seconds off at oaklawn in the martha washington. TWO seconds. how often these days do you see that? most of the time it seems to be measured in tenths or hundredths anymore.

Double misconception. . .

is that sort of like double secret probation?

had 8 Belles run the Oaks last year instead of the derby how many would she have won by? i'm sure not 25 but it would have been open lengths and i'm a fan of Proud Spell. Rags had great determination.
i'm not knocking RA, she was impressive.
I'm just saying the last 5-10 years, a number of 3y/o fillies have been more impressive than the colts.

i can't argue with that.

Rachel is clearly a very good filly but there was not another stakes filly in the race. Rags beat a better bunch as did Proud Spell. If you put those fillies into this race either of them wins by 15-20 over those that Rachel beat.

Nice to really see a horse succeed without the help of a so called super Trainer, with that in mind I put her performance a notch above many others I've seen of late.

you must be drinking your bathwater!!!!!

Rags won her Oaks by 4 1/2 and was 1.12 seconds slower..... in the rain and mud.

agreed... I still think that Ouija Board best filly of this decade, but RA is gaining ground...

She was very good, but aren't you forgetting about a filly that won the Arc last year?

nope. Zarkarva was special, but Ouija Board was the best horse in the world for three years and last year's Arc was pretty weak. I still think in Frankie doesn't get her pinned on the rail in Tokyo in her last race she beats Deep Impact on his track in front of his home town crowd...

You don't think that Rags beats these fillies by at least 15? Rags came out of the Oaks to beat Curlin in the Belmont. I'd have to look it up but I do know that Octave was in that Oak and was a G1 winner. Who out of this bunch is a legit G1 filly, beside the winner?

As for Ouija Board and Zarkava, it's hard to comapre as OB had a full career and Zarkava stopped early. OB was a monstress and her career as an older mare proved it. OTOH, Zarkava beat some pretty serious horses and was never threatened.

I don't think the form of the Arc last year has held up very well; those horses she beat are not David Jr, Dillon Thomas or Giants Causeway.

That being said, what's the scoop on the superstar filly in Europe? Rainbow something I think.

Imo the bolded was one of the most bizarre races.
They absolutely crawled... it was just weird.
I cannot use that race as some sort of milestone
or measuring stick.

I also say leave the mighty O. Board out of this discussion.
She proved herself against a high level of competition in multiple
events over time. We are not close to that yet withRA.