Very good question.

Saratoga needs to step up here... Now that Rachel appears to be back and with big Z likely to win tomorrow... They should make the Whitney $5 million if Rachel, Z and QR show up... Likely if they all came and the purse was that big I am pretty sure Blame, Battle Plan and even Rail Trip would all show up... They could market it as the race of the decade, kind of stick it to the BC for giving it to Churchill again in 2011.

I like that idea except I would change the conditions of The Jim Dandy to have the race of the decade when I'll be there.

JD is straight 3.....

I know.

It was her best effort this year, however I would be leary of these comparisons. I have often seen these raw number comparisons mislead a handicapper. I think if she was in the Stephen Foster she would have had a hard time holding off Blame, that's just my opinion but you can't really compare the 2 races.

No doubt about that.

I dont think anyone will argue she would have won the Foster...
I think she would have ran 3rd in the Foster today, the top 2 are pretty good. Lets not compare who Rachel beat to Battle Plan, I doubt Battle Plan comes back to her the way Jessica Is **** did.

Maybe, but remember this Rachel often looks better when she is much the best in the race, this race posed no really challenges to a horse in her supposed caliber. She did what she had to do.

I wouldn't run her against QR yet. I don't think she needs another gut wrencher right now.

Blame ran huge, was there even one horse to win coming off the pace today on dirt? To run down a horse like Battle Plan makes it even more impressive also throwing in his post and wide trip, that was amazing.

Because NYRA has so much surplus money to use right now.

Of course they dont, but wouldnt someone put the money up?

I basicley just posted the same thing in the other thread, Blame is really good.

I understand by the many comments on here that there were high hopes for Battle Plan. And Blame certainly didnt have the best of trips to run him down, but I just couldnt help but notice, and I saw this watching live, that about 100yrs from the wire BP was looking for a place to lay down. He had everything his own way and basically stopped at the wire. Although it was a solid G1 win for Blame I just didnt see it as awesome. BP put up zero fight at the wire.

Battle Plan was running well and looked like he was going to win until he switched back to his left lead at the 1/16th pole. Right when he switched to his left lead, he came to a stop. I don't know why Castellano didn't at least attempt to get him back on his right lead. I'm not saying it would have necessarily worked but it was worth a try.

Yeah, I noticed that too. I thought he was in trouble before that though.

I would not be surprised at all to see Battle Plan go on the shelf, or never run again.

Why bring her back? If she won Horse of the Year last year, would she still be running tomorrow?

I think he would have had a shot to hold on if he would have stayed on his right lead. I don't think it was a soundness issue. I think it was more a result of the continuous right-handed whipping. When these horses are giving their all and the jock keeps hitting them right-handed, it will sometimes make them switch to their left lead.

As I said before, I don't know why Castellano didn't switch to his left hand to try to get the horse back on his right lead.

I missed it...when did Zenyatta beat boys at equal weights?