[CSC]

Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind

I couldn't possibly care less what people on the internet, with generally no overview of racing history, use to compare racehorses. Personal Ensign was an East Coast based horse, owned by people intimately tied to NY racing, so the fact that she spent her injury plagued career in NY is about as surprising as the sun coming up. Since you brought her up, however, I will add that while racing in NY she did face males in one of NY's biggest stake races ( the Whitney ). No shame in staying home. However, a challenge here or there never hurts.

Be that as it may, Lady's Secret was owned by Eugene Klein, who also owned the San Diego Chargers, so unlike the Phipps family, and like the connections of your darling, he was based on the West Coast. Now, while obviously if someone wanted a championship campaign, ya know....wanted to earn it and not declare it, they needed to run in NY ( especially in the days of racing before the internet when a campaign didn't rest only on a horse's laurels from one day ), he still ran close to half of her races at his home base. He found it possible to do a little ( OK, in her case, a lot ) of both.

You really need to take a good look at Lady's Secret's pps some time. Frankly, you should look at the pps of ALL of those on Steve Crist's list. It might give you some very needed perspective. It isn't that any sane person would ever even entertain the notion that Zenyatta is not a spectacular horse. It's just that some of us have a better sense of history than others.

But the Lady's Secret's are very few and far between, there are not many trainer's that would campaign horses today the way Lukas once did. Campaigns are now watered down for many top horses, injuried or not look how sparingly Ghostzapper ran in his final year of racing or Medaglia Doro for that matter. It was perhaps bad circumstance we did not see her ship the last 2 years other than the Apple Blossom with The BC being situated at SA two years in a row, regardless she is expected to run in the BC Classic this year and being that it is in Ky she will ship with maybe a race in NY before that. If she is successful, she would more than earned the right to be placed with the other great fillies/mares in this game. She is still writing her destiny in the game, you can't really judge her until the book is complete