A Sad Day For Racing

[westcoastinvader]

Blame compiled an exemplary record in 2010 which consists of four Grade 1 victories, including yesterday's Classic win over Zenyatta. To many people who vote for Horse of the Year it will be enough. His record would clinch the award most of the time. This time it's not enough. Zenyatta ran the best race in the Classic, finishing one foot short of overcoming an almost insurmountable obstacle.

http://www.troyrecord.com/articles/2...ewmode=default



That's another view that some voters may have taken regarding the head to head Classic.

[Betsy]

So Blame gets penalized because Zenyatta failed to overcome her own flaw, which is that she has to come from miles out of it?

It's hard to take HOY seriously anymore.

[PatCummings]

Not sure what others thought of it, but I'm pretty certain Mark DeDominico's acceptance speech for Blind Luck was a thinly-veiled ten minute non-stop assault on Team Zenyatta's lack of creativity in campaigning her, followed by the overwhelming platitudes that come with these things...

[Travis Stone]

Originally Posted by westcoastinvader

Blame compiled an exemplary record in 2010 which consists of four Grade 1 victories, including yesterday's Classic win over Zenyatta. To many people who vote for Horse of the Year it will be enough. His record would clinch the award most of the time. This time it's not enough. Zenyatta ran the best race in the Classic, finishing one foot short of overcoming an almost insurmountable obstacle.

http://www.troyrecord.com/articles/2...ewmode=default



That's another view that some voters may have taken regarding the head to head Classic.

Originally Posted by Betsy

So Blame gets penalized because Zenyatta failed to overcome her own flaw, which is that she has to come from miles out of it?

It's hard to take HOY seriously anymore.

If Zenyatta had run the better race in the Classic, she would have won. I'm so sick of this argument.

[Betsy]

Originally Posted by Travis Stone

If Zenyatta had run the better race in the Classic, she would have won. I'm so sick of this argument.

So now when we judge horses in line for Eclipses, we get to count near misses? Fly Down was close in the Belmont, Travers and BC Classic, but he wasn't even a finalist (I'm not saying he should be, but now they've opened up a can of worms). I could probably come up with more examples in recent years. I don't see what Zenyatta did for horse racing. I can promise you that when I get to my office tomorrow everyone who is not a racing fan (meaning probably 100% of the office) will be talking about almost everything under the sun and Zenyatta will NOT be one of the topics. Even if she did something for racing, how fair is it to other horses that they didn't emotionally captivate the public? Well she didn't captivate me - she never did. I never disliked her, I just never cared about her.

Blame beat Zenyatta fair and square - period. He was carrying more than his listed weight in the Classic because he actually had the weight of having to win by open lengths in order to win HOY. We had this discussion of losing performances a month or so ago. Slew's race in the Gold Cup was one losing performance where he deserved better; Zenyatta ran very well, but what was so special about her losing performance? Personal Ensign retired undefeated, running down a KY Derby winner on a track she despised - now those were insurmountable obstacles.

[DaTruth]

Originally Posted by Betsy

Zenyatta ran very well, but what was so special about her losing performance?

Not much. If she was as great as her supporters made her out to be, she should have run down the not-so-great Blame.

[the_fat_man]

Originally Posted by Travis Stone

If Zenyatta had run the better race in the Classic, she would have won. I'm so sick of this argument.

In terms of setup, she got a much worse one than Blame did. Clearly, after all these years of race calling, one would assume that you'd at least grasp that much.

[Travis Stone]

Originally Posted by the_fat_man

In terms of setup, she got a much worse one than Blame did. Clearly, after all these years of race calling, one would assume that you'd at least grasp that much.

I've only been calling for a handful of years... enlighten me.

[my miss storm cat]

I'm sorry but I just finished catching up on this thread and headed over to Equidaily.

The headline is pretty funny...

http://equidaily.com/

[Dahoss]

Originally Posted by Travis Stone

I've only been calling for a handful of years... enlighten me.

As soon as he gets back to the library he'll respond.