A Sad Day For Racing

[Betsy]

Originally Posted by Travis Stone

If Zenyatta had run the better race in the Classic, she would have won. I'm so sick of this argument.

So now when we judge horses in line for Eclipses, we get to count near misses? Fly Down was close in the Belmont, Travers and BC Classic, but he wasn't even a finalist (I'm not saying he should be, but now they've opened up a can of worms). I could probably come up with more examples in recent years. I don't see what Zenyatta did for horse racing. I can promise you that when I get to my office tomorrow everyone who is not a racing fan (meaning probably 100% of the office) will be talking about almost everything under the sun and Zenyatta will NOT be one of the topics. Even if she did something for racing, how fair is it to other horses that they didn't emotionally captivate the public? Well she didn't captivate me - she never did. I never disliked her, I just never cared about her.

Blame beat Zenyatta fair and square - period. He was carrying more than his listed weight in the Classic because he actually had the weight of having to win by open lengths in order to win HOY. We had this discussion of losing performances a month or so ago. Slew's race in the Gold Cup was one losing performance where he deserved better; Zenyatta ran very well, but what was so special about her losing performance? Personal Ensign retired undefeated, running down a KY Derby winner on a track she despised - now those were insurmountable obstacles.