HOTY: If Zenyatta wins the Classic...

[Chalky]

They are both great fillies, but Rachel did not even come close to doing what Zenyatta did today. Look at the common competition:

In the Preakness, Rachel beat Mine That Bird by a shrinking length....Zenyatta beat him by 10 lengths today according to the chart.

And in the Woodward, she beat, and barely beat, Macho Again, who although is a nice horse, is no where near the kind of colts that were in the field Zenyatta beat today. In the Travers, there was no Einstein, no Colonel, no Summer Bird, no Gio Ponti (a horse that had a stellar year), among others.

She has beat everyone that they brought to her, and beat one of the better Classic fields in years.

Although Rachel had an amazing year and can make a case for Horse of the Year, and may even win it, Zenyatta being the first female to win the Classic, in the dominant fashion she did, really was a performance for the ages and would get my vote.

Debates such as this are part of the fun and the intrigue of the sport. I just wish would could have seen them run against each other to settle it, but let's face it, this debate is the next best thing.