you know what.. maybe the BC committee making the BC permanently at Santa Anita and making it irrelevant would be the best possible decision the BC committee could make to change horse racing for the better.

Add on Ellis is usually great off long layoffs.

And ZENYATTA joins the immortal Peppers Pride in the record books!

Well to be accurate, she will pass Cigar and Citation, she has a ways to go before catching PP for all time win streak.

However the way the year is shaping up, if she gets that far wouldn't it be exciting if she were to break that dubious record at CD this fall in the classic ending her career 20 for 20?

Wow..just got through this thread. Could be a top-5.

I found it hilarious.

Consider the following: with THIS jock, Rail Trip can get that 'trip' EVERY time. This is the trip he got when he went 10F --- distance challenged that he is.

Which means that, if ridden correctly, he can basically control any race. More precisely, he can keep a race from collapsing by not moving too soon and forcing the off the pacers to do all their own running. This assumes, of course, that it'll be a reasonably small field. In a large(r) field, it's almost guaranteed that a couple of idiots will move too soon and collapse the race. This, btw, was the trip that RA could've gotten in the BC.:rolleyes:

I certainly don't think that RT can beat Z; especially at 10F. Going shorter, however, and in a small field, with a perfect ride, he'd be a challenge.

Fixed that for you.:rolleyes:

I don't see how he can get that trip if there is other decent speed in the race. Exactly once has he been rated off the pace and farther back than second, and while he ran ok he still lost to Einstein and Richard's Kid. He is not going to get that slow pace while still sitting second in a G1 race.

He has shown in the past to be able to run faster early and still run a good race. My only point is the "great comeback" was nothing more than a workout. He only ran for the last 1/4 or so.

Not to resurrect an old discussion (Eskendereya's Wood), but isn't this why Rail Trip's race was pretty impressive on Saturday. Despite nearly identical fractions, his final running time was over three seconds faster than the other 8.5F races on the card, and on a (synthetic) surface that often compresses margins of victory, he drew off to win by over three lengths while in hand.

Here's a horse that has run triple-digit Beyers on a half-dozen occasions, certainly far more than any of the females that Zenyatta has been beating up on. If he's going to get 10F, it's probably at Hollywood Park (as he did last year). And while we must be careful of trainer-speak, maybe this horse is improved as a 5YO.

Actually. They waffled on the BCC until they knew for sure it was going to be a very weak spot.

They also knew that RA was behind in her training and that there was a realistic chance she couldn't make it to the Apple Blossom

They've been very shrewd.

LOL @ this "worst BCC field ever" drivel

Euros dominated the race in '08 … and they sent over a couple more good ones for the '09 edition on the very same surface …. and Z schooled them in the lane.

Your time would be better spent talking about the 'worst Woodward and Haskell fields ever'.

Your time would be better spent learning how to breathe with your mouth closed.

FIFY

Under no circumstances would I consider a horse sitting behind an overmatched foe in very slow time then flying home late impressive. This is especially true when said horse has never shown the ability to do this from farther back than second in his entire career.

Again, I'm not knocking the horse, it was a workout, nothing more. I would think he will have trouble being ready for the HGC off this effort alone.

why is one a suitable topic, and not the other? the horses who rachel beat were no good according to you, yet zenyatta also faced some of the same horses in cali at years end-yet the bcc talk if being worst ever is drivel... neither horse has beaten much at this point. the points against one are just as valid against the other. the points for each as well.


at this point, i wish both would retire so i could quit seeing endless threads with the same tired arguments.

These were essentially the same type of horses RT was running against with the exception of the GC and the Pacific. If the time was 'very slow' then why did Tres Borrachos not hold on better, the way he did in the Gold Cup --- was that pace 'very slow', as well? Or was that pace 'fast'?

Moreover, if the pace was 'very slow', then why did all the horses that were behind RT early ALSO get wiped out in the lane (with the exception of Slew's Tiznow)? Hadn't Dakota Phone shown that he could stay relatively close to RT in a number of their meetings? What was the problem on Saturday? I mean, he was BEHIND RT and backed up in the lane relative to him.

You've obviously developed a good model here and it works for you. But some of the things you write just don't make sense to me. It stems from the assumption that numeric pace is a larger set than setups -- moves with a race and the type of race it is-- and that your figures determine how you 'see' races. The underlying assumption is that such a system will reveal things that are not immediately obvious. While this is a good thing, what's obvious is that the way horses run, more often than not, is a good indication of who exactly the 'pace' favored and who exactly ran well and poorly.

It seems to me that 'slow' and 'fast' paces need to 'result' in the same 'type' of race, a distinct type for fast and a distinct type for slow, on a consistent basis. From the little I've been able to follow, this isn't the case.

Well, the horses aren't machines and they aren't always in the same form. Tres B is clearly not the same horse, and the rest stink. There is a reason Rail Trip was 6/5 ML coming off an eight month layoff.

As far as numeric pace, it works pretty well. Setups can work well too. Together they tell the whole story.

All I'm saying is that if we consider what the other horses did in that race, RT ran pretty well. We can argue that the others were off form, or whatever, but in order to be able to do so, we need to be on top of these horses a lot more than you and I are, as we play multiple tracks. It can't be the case that everything else in the race was off form.

He did run well.....but did you really look at the pps of the others? Save Dakota Phone, who never really was much on dirt, the others were decidedly mediocre at best. Now, considering how poorly Dakota Phone ran, and given his general synth consistently, it is fair to say he is, in fact off form.

That's not to say it wasn't a decent race by the winner, and certainly it was a great start off an eight plus month layoff, but his competition was non-existent.

I believe he will be running in the Californian next, then the Gold Cup. This was good first step off a nine-month layoff.

My experience with Ellis is he is far better off an extended layoffs than the perverbial second off the layoff as for most Trainer's. I would be leary if one is expecting big improvement from him in his next. Depending on the field I will gladly bet against him at his projected underlay but hey that's just me.

It's time to heed the advice of others....and where better to start than SCUDS.

Am I excited? Not really.
But he is an older male horse who actually ran a pretty good route race. Given how infrequently that happens these days, a potential matchup between he and Zenyatta is (sadly) more interesting than most potential races out there right now.

I believe that there is one other older horse besides Quality Road, who, if he stays healthy, could be a real threat at these longer distances. That horse is Battle Plan, also trained by Pletcher. Anyone know what race he is pointing to next?

I agree, I'm just not ready to crown him some big horse yet.

I haven't read all the way through all 8 pages of this post, but does a start in the Vanity preclude a start in the Gold Cup? The plan was to take on Rachel in the Apple Blossom off 3 to 4 week layoff. Why not get to 17 with a Vanity win and then worry about the Gold Cup. It seems pretty clear that they don't want to run at DelMar, thus they could make a trip to the east coast and still have a chance to get one last prep at Santa Anita prior to the Breeders' Cup.

You're right, it doesn't have to, but apparently, it does: http://www.drf.com/news/article/112840.html. If Shirreffs perceives the Hollywood Gold Cup as the "highest mountain possible," then we now why Zenyatta's connections seem to place her in "mole hills" of races.

I hadn't seen that, thanks for posting...

That is just sad. Rail Trip is the highest mountain possible? What a clown.

John Shirreffs is a terrific trainer and seemingly a nice guy but he has now provided us with two incredibly stupid statements in the last month regarding where Zenyatta will run.

NT

Rail Trip and the Rockies, boxing equivalents to Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali, and both apparently mountains too tough to climb.

Waiting for the Jay Hovdey defense of all things Zenyatta at drf.com in 3, 2, 1...

How can it be possible the winner of the BC Classic is now afraid to tackle the mighty Rail Trip? This has to be a bad dream. I'm sure Mr. Krone will lend some support.

I'm very disappointed to hear this.

It appears as though he's thinking that when you're holding a pair of aces don't risk them against a possible 456 flop until you get to Churchill.

I hope he has a pair of aces because he certainly doesnt have a pair of ballz

I wouldn't say "embarrassed" but I'm disappointed... If you believe in the "goal" (the Breeders' Cup Classic at Churchill) then I think they get a bit of a pass, but the passes are running short...

Recently? This has been going on a lot longer than since her supposed retirement.