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Originally Posted by prudery
There is no " excitement " for me in Rachel's layoff, and if these two meet, it should be under optimum conditions for both ...
I was merely responding--and NOT defensively--that Zenyatta got some flak for her delay ...
I have never refuted that Rachel ran more, beat males more and did it on dirt at age three .. She was legit to be a contender and a winner of HOY ...
I can pick apart some of her races and do not agree with some of the analyses of said races, and I cared at least as much for the Alabama, the Travers, and the JCGC as the ones you mentioned , but that is another issue ..
As a Zenyatta fan--called a tard by some here--I am realistic enough to accept a thinner campaign on a non-traditional surface as a valid critique ..
Though Zenyatta may be flawless, the pathway to accolades was not ..
I would have preferred more dirt, more males , more cowbell, but I had no hand in it ...
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Well, I can't speak for others, all I can say is that I never criticized the layoff for Zenyatta per se. But it did leave them just a few races, and they chose those races way too conservatively, until the last one.
Really, there are only a handful of non-turf (can't call them dirt) CA races that have cachet throughout the country--and part of that cachet relates back to when they were contested on dirt:
Big Cap
SA Derby
Hollywood Gold Cup
Pacific Classic
The Ancient Title and Goodwood used to be held in very high regard as BC preps, on dirt. Now they are only relevant for a plastic BC, which I don't expect to see again soon, especially if SA goes back to dirt (but then both of these preps will be back on dirt, too).
That's about it. The Malibu, Pat Obrien, etc--some people know them, some don't. And the whole slew of "san" and "santa" races are just a jumble to people who didn't grow up watching them. And almost nobody ships into them. Everybody ships to the Haskell, for example.