How do we know? How do we know that there weren't a couple of future Freddymos or DrugS out there in the stands for the first time to see big Z for the first time? How do we know that in this age of female empowerment that Z didn't inspire a few new female horse owners or horse players for that matter?

When is the last time that we had a star that could be cheered for more than two seasons tops?

I am not delusional about her talents. I knew what she was coming in and that opinion hasn't changed (actually enhanced some).

What would be the draw if they bring her to Saratoga next summer? I would bet all of the money Rockhardtenfan lost yesterday that it would be bigger than any non travers card in the last twenty years. Of that bunch, you really don't think there would be a few new players or owners?

i don't understand why you're keeping on with this. i said i'd like to see her back, but in different races than she ran this year. what's wrong with that? wouldn't those fans watch her in the big cap, or the pacific classic?

Personal foul, unnecessary roughness. 15 yards and an automatic first down.

You are showing some semblence of sanity here dala which you often do (despite your abuse of me in other locales!!).

I posted this earlier and got no replies which is not surprising. If you knew nothing of the dancing that the horse did and just said 10 years ago knowing nothing of synthetics, here you will have a horse who will win her first 19 races. She will be the first mare to run in 2 BC Classics. She will be the only mare to win a BC Classic, she will be the only mare to finish 2nd in a BC Classic and the only loss of her career would be a very close photo loss as a 6 yr old mare in her last race of her career in her 2nd consecutive Bc Classic. What would we think of that horse??

Yeah, we all wanted more from her schedule, but really what would we think if someone gave us this scenario 10 years ago??

She would have raced other top horses during her streak, because they would have shipped out to Cali to race against her on a natural dirt surface. So if she was still undefeated, it would have been an incredible feat and I'm sure she would have been applauded for it.

Well hopefully we would take the blinkers off and realize things aren't necessarily that simple. It's the same kind of thinking that would make Kobe Bryant a better basketball player if he wins two more championships.

Yes, applauded for it and an incredible feat. Zenyatta didn't put synthetics in Cal nor did her connections. My only point is that it still is an incredible feat and she should be certainly applauded for it more than I read on here. That's it.

Oh give me a break. She's applauded plenty. Trying to talk some reason into people who want to make her more than she is isn't the same as ignoring her achievements.

It wasn't done to our liking, but no matter how much me or anyone else complain and moan about what races she ran in her career, Shirreffs did have her primed and ready to go in three straight BC events with two wins and a photo loss. I will begrudgingly give him credit for that. To get there he played it soft and cost her HOY this year and he needs to accept that. I find it irritating that attitude, but he knew his horse better than me and had her ready but just not quite as ready as Blame, and I hope he is punished that he played the all eggs card then cries to overturn it. And I guess that is why people are upset at this Zenyatta stuff....but it's mainly the horse I try to look at.

I do love the talent of his horse. she's really good. She's just good.

People here take it too far in both directions. I honestly don't read everything in the Paddock section, but have a ton of posters readily proclaimed her the greatest of all time ever??

Vic called her the greatest female ever yesterday. Without hesitation. What do you think he would've called her if she won? The hyperbole has been nonstop all year.

The GHOAT.

I can't knock the horse. I even liked the dancing. I'll give her this...regardless of the weak fields she's faced, she's no punk b.itch.

No one can know any of that. My best guess is you could certainly safely put her top 10 to 15 female without hesitation or is that getting too far out there?

No they didn't create them, but they didn't go out of their way to take on top class horses away from them. That's the beef almost everyone has. How do you measure a horse's real talents, when she continues to run against most of the same horses on an unperferred surface of many top horses? It's a shame, she ran big yesterday. Makes you think that they should have traveled with more often and then alot of these arguements would have been put to bed a long time ago.

Yes. That's a bad feature of the BC. Not just Zenyatta people play it that way. I mean Blame only ran 5 races this year and also had to win the BC Classic to be considered for HOY. Despite his foster and Whitney wins, he too needed this race.

I think part of this has to do with timing. It could very well be that she was a victim of the synthetic era just as much as it seems she was a beneficiary of it.

If BC 2008 and/or 2009 had been at Churchill as opposed to Santa Anita, might she have proven her point? If last year's BC was at churchill downs, might her connections been a little more "aggressive" in their campaigning? And if it was at churchill last year, what horse was going to beat her based on what we saw yesterday and the form she showed last year? Again, I know that this is speculation.

We can only pretend to know any answers to these.

I think she was a victim of her connections that for certain reasons didn't want to ship her across the country. She would have been a force on the dirt as well and it's a shame that she was never given other opportunites to prove how good she was by racing against other horses, then against most of the creampuffs that she continued to beat on the Cali circuit (BC 09 aside, even though that wasn't a tremendous bunch either).

But that's not what he said, is it? Calling her top 10 or 15 is entirely different than calling her the best.