I believe the only three
 

females to run in the Breeders Cup Classic are Zenyatta and these two....




Obviously Azeri was past her prime some - and had no shot in hell in that great field with Ghostzapper and Pleasantly Perfect. Still ran 5th with a 109 Beyer.

3-year-old filly Jolypha, still elidgible for a non-winners of 3 alw race and making her first lifetime start on dirt, might have been 200/1 on the board if she wasn't coupled in the betting with a pair of solid Bobby Frankel trained older Grade 1 wining males. She gave a great account of herself by running 3rd beaten only 2.5 lengths with a 110 Beyer to the halfway decent horse A. P. Indy.

You can joke about the laughing stock field Zenyatta beat all you want, but she stepped up, ran her race, and was a deserving winner.

And as for the last three females to run in the Triple Crown Series....

* Rachel Alexandra won the Preakness and paid $5.60

* Eight Belles 2nd in the Kentucky Derby at 13/1 odds

* Rags To Riches won the Belmont Stakes and paid $12.60


It really makes you think back to the BC Distaff in '95 .. when Inside Information obliterated the deepest field in the history of the race.

After her race and Cigar's race in the Classic that day ... anyone with the slightest understanding of sound handicapping had to know that II would have certainly won the Classic that day had she been in it.

Yet, her gender... counter to every sound analytical handicapping factor ... was the reason she wouldn't have won had she run in the Classic.

As racing fans .. we've been subjected to a historically embarassing collection of top males the last few years .. but it really has been great to see top females given the chance more often .. and cashing in on the weakness of the males.

That Inside Information win was amazing, an absolute blow-out. Probably right up there with Arazi in terms of most dominating BC wins of all time.

Taking nothing at all from Zenyatta because that was a fantastic race, but it drives me nuts to read some articles declaring this year's Classic field as the "deepest" or "toughest" field.

Yeah - and the field of horses behind II that day was an absolute super group as well.

Obviously they didn't run to their best and II ran out of this world.

No way!!!

Link?


This years Classic field was about the worst ever.

Rip Van Winkle was 3/1 in the betting .. and he's only running a couple lengths faster than 2yo's in Europe going his best distance.

Summer Bird was 3rd choice in the betting .. he never ran on a synthetic track before and had less than ideal turf breeding.

Twice Over was 4th choice in the betting. He ran 3rd even though I thought he was struggling with the turns somewhat and didn't seem comfortable.

I cant for the life of me figure out how people are calling it that. I mean even the best entrant pre race (Summer Bird) was out of his elemant. I guess Rip Van Winkle made it the best classic ever? LOL Its middle of the pack at best.

I don't have time to find them all, but a quote from your hero John Sherriffs:

"That was the biggest moment for me," he said. "The streak was on the line, the fans were there to see her run. A chance for Horse of the Year was on the line. She was running against one of the best Breeders' Cup Classic fields ever assembled. As they say in poker, we were all in."

Blood-horse says this ever year, but I think they suffer from early alzheimer's for the most part.

to support your argument I would not used biased comments from the connections.

You just can't make a blanket assumption like this because we should know by now some horses run to their competition, this was the danger of underestimating Zenyatta prior to the Classic because she ran 90ish beyers in preps. All we know is she runs by Lethal Heat, Life is Sweet the same way she runs by Gio Ponti. We just don't know what Cigar would have done had he run against II earlier in the day or how II would have run at a distance a furlong further on a different type of track.

The females to males thing, I think this will go on for a while, the best males hardly make it to 4 in todays game....ie see Zensational, most have done enough after 8 races.

Pat Biancone sent Triptych in 1986 (6th behind Skywalker)..

Biancobra

says the guys who says zenyatta would beat rachel IF rachel ran in such and such race.

blanket assumption at its best

I didn't realize I was presenting in front of a court of law. It's all over the place..

The big decision leading up to the 2009 Breeders’ Cup was whether Zenyatta would take the easier route in the Ladies Classic, a race she won last year, in her quest for perfection or tackle one of the deepest Classic fields ever assembled.


http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-raci...z-one-and-only

lol good one

Its easy to say after the fact that this field was "weak", but as late as last week, people were making arguments that Rip "would have eclipsed Sea the Stars" and no one know what to expect from Quality Road, Summer Bird or Gio Ponti, etc., on the Pro Ride, so yeah now that they "didn't fire" its easy to say the field was terrible. I don't think you can defend last year's field or even the 2005 field as any better than than this one...

so you go to Steve Haskin, who might as well be the leader of the pretty pony club....I am sure he is a nice guy but he is kind of like the media and Obama, he wont criticize racing.

What do guys like Crist, Beyer, etc say. It was an "ok" field.

BTW who did Inside Information beat in the BC, I remember her biggest competition that year was stablemate Heavenly Prize and that one had a snowball's chance on a sloppy track that day.

Lakeway, Serena's Song

basically no ones i guess

The 1995 Distaff field was pretty stacked.

http://stats.breederscup.com/bcosRac...cfm?race_id=80

NT