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Originally Posted by Kasept
Earlier in the week I had the temerity of suggesting that there is no debate possible regarding HOY. Here's Thoro-Graph's Jerry Brown in a letter to the Thoroughbred Daily News again coldly pointing out the obbvious disparity between the seasons Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta had. Particularly key in on the list of stakes wins of their collective opponents.
To the editors:
I understand that everyone is basking in the afterglow of seeing a great mare complete an undefeated career by beating males. But with all due respect to Bill Oppenheim and others, the idea that Zenyatta should get Horse Of The Year over Rachel Alexandra is just silly when you actually compare their campaigns. When the voters sit down and do that in the cold light of day, I don't believe the vote should or will be close.
This year, before the Breeders' Cup, Zenyatta started four times. All four starts were at home in California, on synthetic tracks, against small fields of locally based fillies and mares that contained a grand total of one 2009 Grade I winner, Life Is Sweet. So if you are to vote for Zenyatta for HOTY, it is strictly on the basis of the Classic. Well, that race contained exactly two horses that had won Grade Is over synthetic this year (Einstein and Richard's Kid), some grass horses, and some dirt horses, which are demonstrably completely out of their element over Pro-Ride (see the last two years of results of main track Breeders' Cup races). Zenyatta beat them at her game, a game she is very good at. She's good on dirt, too, as she proved last year at Oaklawn--but most dirt horses don't handle Pro-Ride, which is basically grass, so she had a big advantage last Saturday.
Meanwhile, earlier this year, while Zenyatta was beating up Anabaas Creation, Lethal Heat, Briecat, Allicansayiswow and Dawn After Dawn, who between them have won two overnight stakes (and no graded ones) this year, this is what Rachel was doing:
• Racing eight times, at seven different tracks, winning them all.
• Beating colts three times in Grade I races, and beating older males AS NOT JUST A FILLY, BUT A THREE-YEAR-OLD.
• Beating the horses that in 2009 won the Kentucky Derby, Belmont, Travers, Jockey Club Gold Cup, Test, Stephen Foster, Whitney, New Orleans Handicap, Riva Ridge, Tom Fool, Acorn, Arkansas Derby, Chilukki and Oaklawn Handicap -- most of those horses males -- and doing it in every case over dirt, the surface where those horses won their stakes.
• And oh yeah, winning this country's premiere race for three-year-old fillies by 20 lengths. Imagine if a colt won the Derby by 20. Imagine anyone winning a GI by 20. They make HBO movies about that kind of thing.
None of this is to be taken as a knock on Zenyatta; she's a great mare. But she just wasn't asked to do very much this year, while Rachel had arguably the greatest campaign any filly has ever had, at the end of which Rachel's connections had the good sense not to run her on (effectively) turf, against a specialist on that surface.
By the way, since it's what I do-- best race vs. best race, on Thoro-Graph figures, Rachel is about six lengths faster than Zenyatta at a mile and an eighth. That's at level weights, and aside from Rachel being two years younger.
Jerry Brown
President, Thoro-Graph Inc
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