I love when we agree.
Its like you took this straight off my tounge.

She ran well. Easily defeated weak competition while running faster than the grade 1, older horse stake later in the card. I'm not sure why anyone wouldn't think she ran well or would downgrade her race other than the slugs in against her. As a matter of fact her slugs and Zenyatta's slugs matching up might be an interesting race.

I was thinking the same thing earlier. Im willing to bet she wont even run in the Classic this year

For the record, I'm more of a Rachel-guy than a Zenyatta-guy. But the last two times Zenyatta's camp has said, "here we are, come get us" (BC and Apple Blossom), Team Rachel has done the ducking.

"We don't run on synthetics" and "we're not fit enough right now." WTF?

Being 20 for 20 should have no bearing on this years horse of the year voting.
Honestly the more you look at Zenyatta's PP's, the more of a joke it it that people think that these races that she is winning should have any bearing on the HoY voting. The same crappy schedule shouldn't be rewarded, it should be scorned.

I hear you, but would the voters really take a third straight undefeated season and the biggest non-TC race of the year win against the other contenders and deny her again?

There is an equal amount of blame to be assigned.

A filly that races 5 times, 4 against fillies and once against colts doesnt really have much of a case unless there is absolutely noone else to vote for.

I'm not totally disagreeing with you guys. HOY probably should be based on 2010 alone. That being said, should Zenyatta take her second straight BCC on dirt over the other big guns, thus completely validating her unblemished record, would it? Absolutely not. C'mon. You boys watch and follow other sports, right? Players of the Year and MVPs are given for lifetime achievement all the time. Karl Malone got one. Charles Barkley got one. Barry Larkin got one...

I think as bad a rap as sportswriters get, they do like to recognize greatness when it's all said and done. No one is going to want to explain how a 20-20 mare with two BCC wins never won HOY for the rest of their lives.

(Do turf writers even vote for HOY? If not, who does? I honestly don't know.)

Amazingly enough there are over 200 people who get horse of the year votes and at least 15 of them actually watch races on a regular basis.

I'm not assigning blame (no pun intended) or anything like that, I just don't see Zenyatta ever running on dirt again. Given where her schedule is right now, and the 20 win mark being an obvious goal, I don't see why they would come East for the rest of the year.

i laughed when one of the tvg bozos called her the greatest mare ever. ever? really? and then they mentioned that even secretariat and man o war couldn't manage a win streak like hers....

i'm pretty sure they intend it to be that way, since it's voted each year, for one year. and let's see her run in the bcc before we bestow that victory on her.


and didn't tiznow win two classics in a row, and lose hoy to point given the second year? it's more than one race for the award people. the trophy goes to the bcc winner, not necessarily end of year honors as well.

Not at all likely to happen.... but Saratoga would be a really great place to settle question as to who is better..

I think it's more likely that I am on the Olympic team for shotput in 2012 than it is for Zenyatta to appear at Saratoga this summer.

Yeah, and Midnight Lute won the Sprint twice and lost the Eclipse the second time to a horse that didn't even run in the race (due to injury but still..)

Then of course the battle for HOY in 1978 when you have Seattle Slew at 4 and Affirmed during his TC year. That had to be a really tough situation.

Yeah Man o War and Secretariat would have struggled to win the Vanity....

When someone constantly has to tell you how great something is, it usually isn't that great at all. The disappointing thing is the trend of the top horses not running very much sucked, but the new trend of not running very much while do that rare running in soft races is even more troubling.

Frankel fashioned this crap(successfully)...I would hope he is resting in peace but unfortunately his daughter is making that difficult.

Unfortunately. And it wasn't as if he hadn't been successful doing it the other way either.

Freddy ...you know you would hammer that.