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Originally Posted by dean smith
Humbly, as I am a know-nothing novice compared to some of you, but regardless of speed figures, am I wrong to think that Zenyatta showed amazing athleticism for such a large animal down the stretch? To my untrained eye she looked like Barry Sanders, cutting hard inside and then back out, never losing a step. Is that type of footwork some kind of illusion, or is there something to be said for it?
Please understand, in the RA vs. Z war, I'm RA all the way. But Zenyatta's last two performances have really got me wondering if I jumped on the right bandwagon.
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Zenyatta is probably more Ironhead Heyward than Barry Sanders .. but yeah, Smith looked vintage Ramon Dominguez-esque with that ride.
I would be a lot more critical of Smith's ride ... if only I hadn't seen Dominguez win like hundreds of Delaware races on short priced horses just like that. Almost never getting stopped and weaving to victory while winning handily instead of just looping around.
I'll tell you this much ... let's say Zardana never ran in New Orleans. What happens?
1.) Rachel Alexandra wins by 12 lengths under a lazy hand ride from Borel.
2.) The final time comes back less than stellar. She gets the same 100 Beyer but a lot of people foolishly assume she would have run a lot faster "if asked" She runs hard to the wire regardless of urging.
3.) Everyone would be falling over themselves to mock that pathetic horse who finished 2nd to Zenyatta. The horse had been 4th or worse in like 10 of her last 11 races.
4.) The line wouldn't be Zenyatta (-170) VS RA (+150) .. RA would certainly be at least a slight favorite.
5.) DrugS would become alarmingly unopinionated on this match-up. Probably just mumbling up something about how good a trainer Shirreffs is when pointing...and how cool the race will be to watch.