Valiant loss puts Zenyatta's prowess in perspective

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by CSC

Do you have an opinion why turf fillies/mares fare better against the males? We've seen it in Japan, France, England, here in the BC, however there are not too many dirt females that have any tangible success against male dirt horses. On the surface it would seem turf is a whole different ballgame that allows both sexes to compete on a level playing field, I'm not knocking anyone, I'm just pointing out when a female beats males on turf, I hardly bat an eye anymore.

It's all about opportunity and need. In other parts of the world, there has always been a huge disparity between the purses of male and female races so once a female showed she was good enough to try it, it made sense to run her against the boys because the purses just weren't worth it in female races. Over the years as female purses have improved, the mentality has stayed the same. They understand what Americans don't seem to and that is that if given the chance, girls can compete. Here, while the purses aren't equal, they are big enough for the girls to keep them in their own division. You'll get the occassional attempt but then it's usually followed by a return to their own sex. If Zenyatta were trained anywhere else, once she won the Classic, she would have basically stayed in open competition. As others have said, I agree that the reason you haven't seen it more is because of lack of opportunity and not because of a lack of ability.

Just as an aside, after the race I was even more pissed at Zenyatta's connections than before. I really feel cheated because they deprived us of seeing some really great things. She could have run away and hid in the SA Hcp, Hollywood Gold Cup, and Pacific Classic. She could have come east and done some things. Instead, they stayed ultra conservative. I think that had they won some of those other big races, they'd have built up some credits and could withstand a loss in the Classic, sort of like Curlin in 2008 and Cigar in 1996. But by playing it the way they did, they left themselves no room for error and even though many walked away thinking Zenyatta ran the better race, she still lost and that should end any arguments for her to be HOY. To me, it's either Blame or Goldikova.