I need to listen to ATR more often
 

The second-hour segment with Steve Davidowitz on Wednesday was excellent. A lesser host would have lightly scolded Davidowitz for his patently absurd opinion about Zenyatta's place among the distaff elites of the last 30 years, but Byk went for the kill and said exactly what needed to be said. You have to listen to it.

:tro::tro:

"I'm sick of the Rachel...stop bringing Rachel Alexandra into the equation, she's got nothing to do with it, she's got nothing to do with this conversation."

Unreal.

Personal Ensign's name came up in the conversation. Talk about a horse that didn't travel much: Personal Ensign had 13 lifetime races. Of those 13 lifetime races, 11 of them were in New York and 10 of them were at Belmont. Every race of her career was at Belmont except for three races. She ran once at Saratoga, once at Monmouth, and once at Churchill. That was it.

She never came out to the west coast, not even once. At least Zenyatta has gone back east a couple of times and is going to go back there again later this year.

http://www.bloodhorse.com/pdf/Person...ifetime_PP.pdf

You are seriously trying to compare these two situations?

If you notice PE's 2nd season of running after she had a ton of screws placed in her leg, lasted from Sept 6 to Oct 18th in which she managed to squeeze in 4 races.

Her 4 year old season she won 2 grade 1's at Belmont, went to Monmouth then traveled to Saratoga to run in a grade 1 against colts in the slop, knocked out 2 more grade 1's at Belmont in the fall (you might remember when the Belmont fall meeting was important?) and concluded the year and her career in the mud at CD.

I'm just playing the devil's advocate. Out of Personal Ensign's 13 lifetime races, 10 of them were at Belmont and she never travelled out to the west coast.

I didn't hear people complaining that practically all her races were at Belmont.

The truth of the matter is, it is silly to knock either one of them.

In Zenyatta's 5 year old season she won 5 grade 1's including the BC Classic against the boys. This year she went to Oaklawn and won a grade 1 there. She has now won 8 grade 1's in a row.

Davidowitz: "Personal Ensign ran down Winning Colors who was running her eyeballs out, just like Zenyatta ran down St Trinians who was running her eyeballs out."




I obviously respect his opinion, but his lack of perspective in this discussion is incredible.

I don't know if it's relevant to this discussion but here is an article about Zenyatta and Beyer numbers:

http://drf.com/drfNewsArticle.do?NID=113943

Also, "I'm not putting a crown on her head." What? Didn't you just say she's better than Personal Ensign and Bayakoa? You also managed to mention her in the same breath as Secretariat, Picasso and Rembrandt before Byk got a word in. If that's not you crowning something, I don't think I want to know your idea of a coronation.

I don't think he's lacking perspective at all. He's not saying that St Trinians is as good as Winning Colors. You obviously can't compare the two fillies. One of them won the Derby. The other is a grass/synthetic specialist.

When a filly wins the Derby, that obviously speaks for itself. Winning Colors was obviously a great filly. St Trinians can't be mentioned in the same breath as Winning Colors. But St Trinians does have a great turn of foot and she is a very tough filly on a synthetic track on her best day. She ran huge on Sunday. She was sprinting home that final 1/8th of a mile. She won't go down as an all-time great, but on her best day St Trininas can probably beat any filly or mare in the country right now (with the exception of Zenyatta) on a synthetic track. On Sunday, St Trinians was very hard to run down.

Now you're just talking about semantics. If a guy says that he thinks a horse is "one of the all-time greats", is that putting a crown on the horse's head? I don't know the answer to that. The guy is just giving his opinion. I don't know if I would define that as "putting a crown on her head".

Did PE ever run in the same race twice? It isnt silly to knock the schedule that Zenyatta's people have taken.

Yes, she did. She ran in the Beldame twice.

The problem in a nutshell is that after 17 races we are still dealing with conjecture. If she were to run against so and so on a dry dirt track....If she were to ship east....if, if, if....

Shug just has no imagination...

By the way, I think the double standard is ridiculous. Zenyatta is going to go back east twice this year and yet people don't think that is enough.

Some of the New York horses never came out west. If one did come out west twice in a year, that would be considered a very ambitious campaign. Yet Zenyatta going back east twice this year is not enough.

I guess Zenyatta needs to fly back east 3 or 4 times this year. That would be a really smart way to get her to peak on BC day, just keep flying her back and forth from California to the east coast.

He has a great imagination. He just kept running her over and over again at Belmont. 10 out of her 13 lifetime races were at Belmont.

I found it to be unfortunate. Can't get all rattled on air.

Sounds like you're the one arguing semantics. The point is, he bestowed extreme praise on her and then backed off by saying he's not crowning her. Both ways it can't be.

And yes, he lacks perspective when he aligns the achievements of Personal Ensign and Zenyatta the way he does. What Zenyatta did against St Trinians, while impressive, is absolutely irrelevant to what PE did against Winning Colors, because their competition were in two completely different classes of animal.

See, this is the problem with Zenyatta freaks. They like comparing her to the great racemares of the past, and their justification for doing so is her record and her running style. But record and running style are next to meaningless if you're beating up on ordinary horses 95% of the time. And yes, ST is an ordinary horse, I don't care what the toteboard in the Big Cap said.

It's also a problem with racing fans in general, the constant impulse to compare horses of the present to horses of the past, and it's usually unfair to the horse of the present. Instead of everyone appreciating Zenyatta for what she is, a very good mare with a beautiful and admirable will to win, rational racing fans are inundated with comparisons to Cigar and Citation and Personal Ensign and Secretariat and Picasso and Rembrandt. It's tiresome and unnecessary. Why is there such a rush to measure up the stars of today against the ghosts of the past while horses like Zenyatta are still writing their own stories?

The truth of the matter is, there really aren't any great filly or mare dirt horses out there right now aside from Zenyatta or Rachel. So if Zenyatta did go back east again and beat up on some mediocre fillies, that wouldn't prove any more than what she's been proving out here. People knock her for beating up on the same mediocre fillies over and over again out here, but she won even easier when she went to Oaklawn.

Is there any filly (aside from Rachel) back east on the dirt that would give Zenyatta a tougher time than St Trinians? I highly doubt it. I think Zenyatta would win even easier back east on the dirt against fillies and she's already proven it twice.

Some of you will probably argue that she should be running against the boys. Why should she? She did it once and she's going to do it again in the BC Classic later this year. That will be twice in her career. How many times did Azeri run aganist the boys? How many times did Personal Ensign run against the boys. If a great mare runs against the boys a couple of times in their career, that is quite reasonable.

More invocation of ghosts from the past. Why does it matter what Azeri or Personal Ensign did? It's irrelevant to this conversation. What is relevant is that Zenyatta has already proven, ad nauseum, that she's better than the older girls in California and Arkansas. What she's doing right now is accomplishing nothing new for her legacy other than another stupid notch in the winning streak. Don't trot her out to do the same thing against the same lousy horses over and over again and then complain when people bristle at her being called the greatest racemare in 30 years.