Roger Stein on Beyer on Zenyatta

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Indian Charlie

Or it could be just as DrugS predicted would happen, and why.

She's never been in a quick paced race before, and almost by default, she was going to be further back than ever before.

Either that, or God willed it. Too bad Pat Day wasn't on Z. I think God would have been on Team Zenyatta that day if he had.

I wonder if I'm the first person to ever use Zenyatta and god together in the same sentence.

That is simply untrue. She's been in plenty of races over the course of her career where the paces were similar or even faster and she was nowhere near that far back. When she broke her maiden, they went the half in :44 4/5 and she was only 8 back. In her next race, they went :46 1/5 and she was only 4 back. Granted her style has changed in that she now comes from much further back but I highly doubt that she can't comfortably be closer than 20 lengths back when they run 3 furlongs in :35. There have been plenty of races over the last year when they went :47 and change and she wasn't anywhere near 20 lengths back after 3 furlongs in any of those races.

The only race that was anything close to this was last year's BC Classic. I can't figure out what was going on with her in the early going in that race. She wasn't herself at all. She wouldn't switch leads which is unusual for her. Mike Smith tried two or three times to get her to switch before she finally did it.