Asmussen: No Rachel for Blossom

[miraja2]

Originally Posted by gales0678

let's say you were the trainer chuck and mr jackson came to you and wanted you to make the April 9th race against Z. would you be able to get her ready to face Z in that amount of time ?

the facts are RA off since sept , works start jan 27 , Zenyatta retired but not missing a beat in training for some odd reason since the BC - is there any possible way that RA could be at 100 % for this race on april 9th , we all know Z is and will be at 100% , but could rachel be there? is it really fair for RA to face Z on april 9th given the fact that 1 horse has not missed a beat since oct and the other one had a 5 mth layoff and will have about 2 1/2 months of acclerated training? if the shoe was on the other foot would sheirffs really run Z against RA?

I still don't understand what I'm missing here.
Did RA run 130 BSFs all last year and all of the sudden run a 75 last Saturday? I don't think so. Did she run back to her top numbers in her first back? No, but she ran well enough and fast enough that it seems perfectly reasonable to expect that she might be close to where she was last year in her next start.
People (including the connections apparently) make it sound as if she went from being Citation last year to being a $5K claimer in her first race this year. Neither is the case.