How quickly before CSC and the Zenyatta Sunshine Band bring up that Zardana beat Rachel after Zenyatta pummels her on Sunday? Because, of course, different surfaces don't matter.

This article is amazing. The Moss' wanted "to have fun with her" and so they're looking for a 3rd straight Hirsch? What?!? Wouldn't "fun" constitute a challenge, or broadened horizons? I guess not.

NT

They're clearly just trying to win Best in Show rather than HOY.

While she obviously outclasses her field, I
hardly think Zenyatta will enjoy favorable circumstances
in her race. She's giving 9 lbs to a pretty
nice horse and I'll be surprised if the pace is
to her liking. And while it's debateable, there's
reason to believe she hasn't been training as
sharply as she was earlier in the year.

I expect Zenyatta to lose this weekend.

This schedule is soooo beyond pathetic.

I would be happy to own a horse like Zenyatta.

We all would, it doesn't make her campaign any more interesting though.

Listening on my way home tonight, they were talking about how great she looked in her last workout, dappled and happy and healthy. She IS giving up a fair amount of weight in this race, so it may be interesting. The great news (for me, without TVG) is that it can be seen live in the interwebs!

http://cs.bloodhorse.com/blogs/ntra-...on-sunday.aspx

Where is the missing the joke icon?

It's sort of obvious at this point that her connections have no real faith in her.

If Zenyatta was mine she would of taken on the one turn Met Mile to show the world what she's got.

It appear that the Moss's are going to try to keep her winning steak alive and beat the boys in the Classic. I am amazed at how well she runs without a warm up before the race.

Still this campain doesn't make any sense.:zz::zz::zz:

I dont think that is true.

They lost focus when RA faltered and had no back up plan to get to the Breeders Cup.

It makes alot of sense. It simply does not inspire any interest among horseplayers. They could run in the Foster and parade her through New York before the Breeders Cup and have nothing left for the ultimate goal.

All this campaign proves is that she is a little better, female version of Lavaman.

I hope RA, Zenyatta, and Blame win this weekend and continue winning (include Quality Road) up to the BC. I want to see the 4 of them face off in the BCC.:)

Wow...just when you thought The Moss's/Sherifffs couldn't embarass themselves anymore with this same old weak schedule as the last 2 yrs, they enter Zardana in The Vanity as well as a rabbit, then announce they are running against the same field 2 months later at Del Mar. What happened to "This year we are going to ship her all over"? It's obvious they have lost confidence in her.

They should have retired her after The BC last year. What they are doing with her in 2010 is a joke and diminishing her reputation.

I don't get it. What does Rachel Alexandra losing have to do with their road to the BC?

I hope she loses and gets a bone chip and they retire her. I'm sick of reading about these spineless douchenozzles with too much money and not enough pride.

I assume she will lose and then be retired. There has to be a reason they are doing this.

Might be a high wind advisory in the Rockies this weekend.

Doesn't make sense to want a so-called all time great to actually try serious challenges? Considering how she's run at Del Mar in years past and Shirreffs' comments, why not try her at Saratoga?

That's why the b.ullshit last year about how "Zenyatta was ready to run in the Beldame before Jackson declared Rachel" was ludicrous then and is now.

If you are a fan of this game you can't possibly be happy about Zenyatta's planned campaign at this point in time. Even the biggest California homer has to want her to go around the country and strut her stuff, and I mean at racetracks beyond Arkansas.

NT

The wind was emenating from Southern California.

Ah, the armchair trainers are out in force … again

Pay no attention to their idle chatter, John … do whatever it takes to get your champion SIX-YEAR-OLD mare back to the CUP fresh, fit, and ready to fire her best shot at the 10f pretenders



Meanwhile, in other news, the reigning 'horse-of-the-year' goes for that elusive first W in some G2 at CD… lol

I agree. To me, it is obvious the old man gets a hard on when she runs in California because some of the attention gets put on him. He is praised by the people there for running them there.

Personally, I can care less what races she runs in, I'm just glad she is running. Sure I would like to see her against better competition but it is what it is.

I wasn't around for Personal Ensign or Ruffian or any of the other greats that all the old timers talk about. In my lifetime, Zenyatta is a 'great' and I enjoy seeing her run. I'll never forget the energy inside of Santa Anita when she popped her head out down the lane in the BC, it was like people were only watching her the whole time and saw she had a chance and went apeshit.

Hey probation boy! Were you one of the dirty boosters? Too bad mr Kardashian has to give back his trophy...

Blah blah blah. She's not doing anything new, so why's it so great that she's still running? She might as well be retired. It's nice that you were there for her BC win and it's nice that she has fans in California, but the rest of us couldn't give two shts about that right now. We want to see her challenged, not do the same damn boring thing three years in a row.

Again, they want best in show, not HOY.

no, they want hoy. they just don't want to run an hoy campaign to earn it. they're supposed to get the votes just based on her 'talent', not on her actual on the track accomplishments. kills me the bitter zenyatta fans who think she should have won over a 3 yo who went out and EARNED it throughout an entire, perfect season.
at the very least, zenyatta should be in the californian. and giving nine pounds-big deal. like that's something to brag about.

am i glad she's running, sure. is the campaign one for the ages? hell no.

Honestly there is less interest in general in Zenyatta's CA AAA events than any other supposedly great horse in history. I doubt that I will go out of my way to watch her race.

The best thing would have been her losing that race at Del mar last year so they wouldn't be so obsessed with the stupid winning streak. Winning streaks are only in vogue now because owners want to be part of the story and the college football mentality rules. Perhaps if they didn't have the undefeated deal they would have tested her in traditional proving grounds. Now if she doesn't win out and win the BC i just dont think she will be remembered as anything more than a really good horse who spent much of her career ducking competition, and mostly historically weak competition at that.

That's as succinctly as anyone can possibly put it.

SOLID.

I want to see how she runs Sunday, if she runs off and wins for fun than yea this sounds really stupid.

A win for the Rockies

Everyone's entitled to their own opinion. But these comments about Zenyatta are so weird to me. I am looking very forward to seeing Zenyatta run. She is attempting to make racing history sunday. Only one other horse in america will ever have won more races than Zenyatta while undefeated. That's Huge.

Zenyatta is not responsible for what races she runs in. She's a horse. On Sunday she will attempt to make history and there are people here saying they're not going to watch it. They're entitled to do what they want. But in my opinion it's really dumb to miss out on a historic race because you dislike her campaign. History is history - and one way or another Sunday's race will be a race people will talk about for years to come.

Don't miss history because you hate a horse's campaign.

Of all the monumentally stupid things Zenyattards say, this thing about being a six year old, to me, is easily the most asinine.

Firstly, that 2yo campaign Zenyatta had, I assure you, took nothing out of her. She ran a whole whopping ZERO times at 2.

She did, however, have a far more taxing race schedule as a 3yo. After spending nearly the first eleven months of her 3yo season not racing, she finally makes her debut on Nov. 22 of her 3yo season, then actually made a second start to close out a truly grueling 3yo campaign.

So, in effect, this is really only her third season of racing. Same as RA.

In case the obvious has eluded you, that means that by the time in RA's career that she had locked up the HOY trophy, Zenyatta, was still an unraced prospect, in her own respective career.

You must have been pretty excited about Pepper's Pride as well.

Not at all blackthroated...
Good way to avoid the point that this is going to be a race worth watching:)

In my opinion every race is worth watching.

I didn't avoid any point....I just don't buy the manufactured hype. Good horses deserved to be campaigned as such. If connections don't believe in their horse why should I?

Something must be up. Either they're not pleased with how she's trained, or the ship to Oaklawn knocked her out more than they expected. Throat said it best, this is not the campaign I was expecting.

Zenyatta's connections don't believe in her?

Zenyatta ran in the breeders cup classic when she could easily have ran in the ladies classic last year. That's believing in your horse blackthroated.

Her connections don't believe in her. Give me a break.

And saying I like Peppers pride when I post a statement about how the Vanity will be a historic race is completely avoiding anything that I have to say IMO.

I get it though if I say the vanity's going to be a historic race it means peppers pride was awesome to me. Well Blackthroated... if I thought peppers pride was amazing I wouldn't think that Sunday was something special would I? I would think Zenyatta had no record to break wouldn't I.

You don't have to like Zenyatta though and I get it you don't:) To each his own I guess. My opinion is different though and I guess you want to belittle me for it. My point was think about the history this horse is making and stop hating on her while there is still time to enjoy her. She's making history and if you don't want to admit it than go ahead and say I like peppers pride.

No, the BC Classic was their believing for almost the entire year that their claim that her being undefeated would be good enough to back into a win for HOY, then realizing their backs were up against the wall after Rachel did what she did and going to the Classic.

And after the reaction when they lost the award, it was pretty clear that they had a big sense of entitlement to that award. The way they're campaigning her this year just confirms that they didn't run her in the Classic to prove her greatness, it was to try to win an award they thought they would waltz into.

She's a special and very good animal for sure, but we're never going to know where she stands among the greats, because her connections are not willing to show us. She's a horse, that's not her fault, but in the end she also gets her legacy as nothing more than what she does as a horse, and her connections don't seem too eager to build that up. Good for them for doing what they want, but I don't want to see any more sour grapes and classless reactions like earlier this year when she loses another HOY vote after another campaign like this.

Really? You weren't expecting this?

I don't see how that's possible.

Why would they change their actions after all this time? Because they said they would?