Will Zenyatta Win the 2010 Breeders' Cup Classic?

11/2/2010 6:31 PM  | pick6blog.com
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The Zenyatta comment wars have been raging at Horse Racing Nation for many months. In this post I will try to bring some sanity to the table as I attempt to honestly answer the burning questions surrounding the undefeated mare.


Did Zenyatta deserve 2009 Horse of the Year honors, and should she get the award this year?


Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta both did enough to warrant Horse of the Year honors last year. Rachel got the award and I have no problem with that. If there was ever a HOY dead-heat, 2009 was it...

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What the Nation is saying about Will Zenyatta Win the 2010 Breeders' Cup Classic?...

Blame retiered pretty early in his carrer. look at Zenyatta, are ppl gonna call her a loser b/c she lost? she is six years old!!! many horses retire when 5 or earlier. and she is turning 7 on April Fools Day.
Zenyatta is FTW's #1 choice....
I've looked this race over inside out ,upside down etc. I can see only 3 legitimate threats to Z. Blame- he was the only horse who closed at Saratoga on the outside against the track bias,prior to that he ran down a very good Battle Plan in the Stephen Foster. Next LAL , he is getting better and better and if you take the time to watch his races the 3 he lost should be thrown out .GG almost put him down twice not to even mention running him into the fence in the Derby before being taken off.The last possible contender I can see is QR the ultimate under achiever who needs to run the race of his life just to hit the board. "IF" she is beatable those 3 is where it will come from. As I stated before I'm going to sit back and just watch this one buy a win ticket on her just in case this is her last race and 15 years down the road my Grandson will have a verynice trophy, Hopefully.
curlin, I agree with you 100%, would we really be having this argument if she ran on dirt for all 19 races?! As you stated I don't know if she should be considered "the greatest" of all time. She is absolutly "the greatest" female runner of all time. To me as a newcomer to horse racing it is so discourging to read CTC comments and apparent hatered of Z for what, because she ran most of her races on 3 different tyes of synthic tracks? Before Zenyatta I maybe had watched 2 Derby's in my whole 30 years on earth, now I follow everything. Just to make a point about what fans Z has brought to horse racing, just since Sunday after the 60 mins piece aired she has gained over 4000 fans on her facebook page. She has brought so many new and young people into the world of horse racing. I don't know if she will win Sat I sure hope she does. However, win or lose she will still be "The Queen".
Icy: Are you new here? CTC has been hating on zenyatta all year. He feels that in order to prove her worth she needs to win on Saturday. To most racing fans, she is already one of, if not the best race mare of all time as well as an all time great horse. To CTC, she is a poly track specialist who nothing more then a good horse. In my opinion, even before this year she cemented herself as one of the best horses of all time. If she wins IMO she can sit on her throne next to big red at #2. If she loses, she's still a legend.
she's a winna
well put cugel, switch and rinterval better do something tom. those odds are just nuts, no respect. for those two. unless swtich bounces she should be tough.
Zenyatta does not control the horses that line up against her. She was supposed to face Rachel Alexandra in the Apple Blossom but that one was a no show. Blind Luck was nominated to the Lady's Secret but her trainer Jerry Hollendorfer opted to ship her to PA for the Cotillion. Thoroughbred horse racing is judged by a graded system. Zenyatta has won 13 Grade 1 races including 9 straight. John Shirreffs has geared her whole 2010 campaign around the Breeders' Cup Classic. The goal was to get her to peak at Churchill Downs and we shall see what happens on Saturday.
cugel you must be a shill for this site! no sane person could possbly deny Zenyatta her place among the best of them.
There were a total of 10 fillies and mares who finished in the place-show positions against Zenyatta this year. NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM IS ENTERED IN THE LADIES CLASSIC! Proves my point about the quality of competition which Zeny has beat this year (i.e. NOBODIES). Two of them, Switch and Rinterval are entered in the F&M sprint and are longshots even there!
The majority of Breeder's Cup races require a completely different frame of reference as there are simply too many logical horses in each and every races sprinkled with too many unknowns.
Hey icy i actually decided the same exact thing about a week ago!!!!!! LOL...
This may sound crazy but I'm going to bet a lot of breeders cup races but I've decided I want to sit back and enjoy the classic with no monetary considerations.
Mike Smith is a very good jockey and horses like Z have to have something to run at ,a target or they won't run thats why she's had some very close ones. Only QR running the race of his life can give her a run and even then I'll take Z.
Fast pace+distance+fast track+her preferred surface = easy win. Everything should go right for her. The only person that can get her beat is Mike Smith but, I expect he will have the ride of his life. I expect him to be a bit closer to the rail like he did last year but IMO she will win this race. I'll be there. I'm so excited.
BTW if she is to run on send her to europe where they think they've seen the best,her turf pedigree is second to none.
mdracing69- nice post on Rachel's "grueling 3yo campaign". I was at the woodward and as soon as they came across the finish I turned to my son and said"she'll never be the same again they did the sme thing to Riva Ridge at Hollywood and it took him a year to recover and he was a big strong fully grown horse"
md, great points about horses like Blind Luck avoiding Zenyatta. I just read an article about Switch and John Sadler basically says the same thing when he talks about why he ran his filly Switch in the Lady's Secret - "We thought we’d run against the older mares because Zenyatta scares a lot of horses out of the race," trainer John Sadler said.
Rachel's connections (Asmussen-Jess Jackson) ran her into the ground during her grueling 3yo campaign and that is why she wasn't the same horse in 2010. The Apple Blossom no-show was a Jess Jackson ego move because he knew the 2010 version of Rachel had no shot against Zenyatta. On the flip side, Zenyatta is still going strong at age six and that can be contributed to her more conservative handling. I bet Rachel would be going strong today if Hal Wiggins was still in her corner.
It's not that RA avoided her, RA was clearly not ready. I like Asmussen but he's not Wiggins and it was Hal's conditioning on RA that got her through her 3 yo year. I would refuse to race a horse that wasn't ready, why break them down?
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