Great year for female horses - not so for female racing

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Great females: Rachel Alexandra, Zenyatta

(both in their prime)

Very good females: Indian Blessing, Informed Decision, Ventura, Life Is Sweet, Music Note

(All of them in their prime except for Indian Blessing.)

IB's a Baffert trained 2yo champion filly - the Thoro-Graph people were calling her the fastest filly of all-time when she was running huge in the summer of her 3yo season. Like Baffert's beast Silverbulletday .. she peaked at that point and hasn't been quite the same since.

Females not named with great performances this year:

* Icon Project (114 Beyer 13.5 length Grade 1 win in the Personal Ensign. 2nd place finisher won the $1 million Del Cap start prior .. won the Grade 1 Ruffian start after)

* Careless Jewel (11 length Grade 1 win in the Alabama. 2nd fastest Beyer in the Alabama this decade)

Not to mention:

* Goldikova beat the males in the Breeders Cup Mile for the 2nd year in a row

* Miss Isella and Swift Temper .. two horses who will not appear on anyones top ten of best females we've seen this year posted a 1:49.59 winning time in the Flur Des Lis .. in a very similar paced race at the same distance, track, and day ... Macho Again needed 1:49.75 to beat Einstein in a Grade 1 for older males.

Outstanding collection of individual female horses ... but a total waste when you think about all of the fascinating match-ups we could have seen .. but didn't.

Yeah ... no RA vs Zenyatta... but how about ...

* Rachel Alexandra versus Icon Project at 10fs on dirt would have been epic. And why not throw in Careless Jewel to negate RA's huge tactical edge at that distance.

* Zenyatta versus Informed Decision, Ventura, and Goldikova at a mile or 8.5fs on synthetic would have also been epic.

Informed Decision is 7-for-7 with 6 Graded Stakes wins on synthetic .. her sire is a Kentucky Derby winner in Monarchos. Her dam sire is friggin His Majesty.

His Majesty sired turf marathoners like Majesty's Prince (2 Grade 1 wins at the distance of 13 furlongs) and Catewayo. He also sired dirt horses like Kentucky Derby winner and great stamina sire Pleasant Colony..as well as Cormorant .. who sired Derby winner Go For Gin.

Informed Decision might be a great sprinter on synthetic .. but she's bred to run forever and has never even tried a two-turn route race before.

Ventura lost a dirty nose to Gio Ponti in a two-turn turf route at level weight this year. She loves synthetics.

Has anyone who's paid any attention to how well non O' Brian trained Euro's run on synthetic really think that Goldikova wouldn't be a force on it? Lets see Zenyatta try and swoop those three.


The true beauty about that great group of older males that were around in '97 was that 5 absolute monsters raced against each other so often and took turns beating the piss out of each other so often that only Skip Away was left standing by the time the Breeders Cup finally came around.

He wins the Breeders Cup Classic by 6 lengths with a 120 Beyer - the 2nd place finisher won the Grade 1 Travers and Grade 1 Super Derby in his last 2 starts over horses like Behrens and Awesome Again. Enough to win Skip Away the older male division .. but She Be Wild was voted horse of the year over Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta that year.

That's the only bad thing about seeing fantastic match-ups all year long. Some excellent horses will wind up taking more L's than W's.

The real treat for racing fans in 2009 was seeing Rachel Alexandra win the Preakness, Haskell, and Woodward and Zenyatta win the BC Classic .. all great stuff .. but other than Summer Bird .. I really can't say enough bad things about the collection of males they beat in those 4 races.

We will never see another year again where the 8 best female horses are a better collective group than the 8 best male horses. I remember a time or two over the years when the best female horse around wasn't good enough to belong in the top 25 male horses.

[VOL JACK]

Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS

Great females: Rachel Alexandra, Zenyatta

(both in their prime)

Very good females: Indian Blessing, Informed Decision, Ventura, Life Is Sweet, Music Note

(All of them in their prime except for Indian Blessing.)

IB's a Baffert trained 2yo champion filly - the Thoro-Graph people were calling her the fastest filly of all-time when she was running huge in the summer of her 3yo season. Like Baffert's beast Silverbulletday .. she peaked at that point and hasn't been quite the same since.

Females not named with great performances this year:

* Icon Project (114 Beyer 13.5 length Grade 1 win in the Personal Ensign. 2nd place finisher won the $1 million Del Cap start prior .. won the Grade 1 Ruffian start after)

* Careless Jewel (11 length Grade 1 win in the Alabama. 2nd fastest Beyer in the Alabama this decade)

Not to mention:

* Goldikova beat the males in the Breeders Cup Mile for the 2nd year in a row

* Miss Isella and Swift Temper .. two horses who will not appear on anyones top ten of best females we've seen this year posted a 1:49.59 winning time in the Flur Des Lis .. in a very similar paced race at the same distance, track, and day ... Macho Again needed 1:49.75 to beat Einstein in a Grade 1 for older males.

Outstanding collection of individual female horses ... but a total waste when you think about all of the fascinating match-ups we could have seen .. but didn't.

Yeah ... no RA vs Zenyatta... but how about ...

* Rachel Alexandra versus Icon Project at 10fs on dirt would have been epic. And why not throw in Careless Jewel to negate RA's huge tactical edge at that distance.

* Zenyatta versus Informed Decision, Ventura, and Goldikova at a mile or 8.5fs on synthetic would have also been epic.

Informed Decision is 7-for-7 with 6 Graded Stakes wins on synthetic .. her sire is a Kentucky Derby winner in Monarchos. Her dam sire is friggin His Majesty.

His Majesty sired turf marathoners like Majesty's Prince (2 Grade 1 wins at the distance of 13 furlongs) and Catewayo. He also sired dirt horses like Kentucky Derby winner and great stamina sire Pleasant Colony..as well as Cormorant .. who sired Derby winner Go For Gin.

Informed Decision might be a great sprinter on synthetic .. but she's bred to run forever and has never even tried a two-turn route race before.

Ventura lost a dirty nose to Gio Ponti in a two-turn turf route at level weight this year. She loves synthetics.

Has anyone who's paid any attention to how well non O' Brian trained Euro's run on synthetic really think that Goldikova wouldn't be a force on it? Lets see Zenyatta try and swoop those three.


The true beauty about that great group of older males that were around in '97 was that 5 absolute monsters raced against each other so often and took turns beating the piss out of each other so often that only Skip Away was left standing by the time the Breeders Cup finally came around.

He wins the Breeders Cup Classic by 6 lengths with a 120 Beyer - the 2nd place finisher won the Grade 1 Travers and Grade 1 Super Derby in his last 2 starts over horses like Behrens and Awesome Again. Enough to win Skip Away the older male division .. but She Be Wild was voted horse of the year over Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta that year.

That's the only bad thing about seeing fantastic match-ups all year long. Some excellent horses will wind up taking more L's than W's.

The real treat for racing fans in 2009 was seeing Rachel Alexandra win the Preakness, Haskell, and Woodward and Zenyatta win the BC Classic .. all great stuff .. but other than Summer Bird .. I really can't say enough bad things about the collection of males they beat in those 4 races.

We will never see another year again where the 8 best female horses are a better collective group than the 8 best male horses. I remember a time or two over the years when the best female horse around wasn't good enough to belong in the top 25 male horses.

Do you really think Sheppard could train her to stretch out?
Maybe he was showing the Horse Racing world he is not a one trick pony and can train a top tier sprinter.
She made plenty of money and won some big races sprinting on the cat litter.
I guess it was a why bother type of thing.

Great Post DrugS.

[The Indomitable DrugS]

I'd really love to have seen her get a shot to stretch out on synthetic.

They need to make an awesome realistic horse racing video game for the PS3 like the NFL has with the Madden series.

The NTRA should have contacted me before they put out that epicly unplayable video game for the PS2 .. the one with Ghostzapper on the box cover.

I could have helped them make an absolute masterpiece of a video game.

I'd have Serling and Byk doing the NYRA pre-race analysis stuff. Freddy Mo and PG'1985 would be my broadcasting team for racing at Penn National.