HOY?

Since John Shirreffs is in KY for the Queen Elizabeth II which will be run tomorrow at Keenland, a press conference was called so that the press could ask him questions. One of his answers though was pretty interesting: Zenyatta should win HOY, even if she loses the Classic (to read more of what he said click here). Really? Really? That's saying that the following horses don't deserve HOY over Zenyatta:

Quality Road
Blame
Lookin at Lucky
Blind Luck
Richard's Kid
Haynesfield

If QR, Blame, Lucky, Richard and Haynes win the Classic then they are HOY, if BL wins the Ladies Classic and all the horses, including Z lose the Classic, she has a chance. ALL of these horses deserve HOY more if they win the Classic if Zenyatta loses (heck if she loses the Classic and if Life at Ten wins the Ladies Classic she could sneak in there and take the Older Female title away from Z, but that's highley doubtful). Why does Shirreffs think this way, here is excerpt from the article:

“I would think that would be almost too much,” Shirreffs said. “For what she has done for the last three years, I would have to say that would be a real slap in the face. Not only in performance, but [also] what she has done for racing in general.”

A slap in the face? Really John, you've had your chance 2 years in a row. 2008, I agree that you should have won dispite Curlin's record. Last year Rachel was just too good. I'm a fan of Zenyatta, but a comment like this is why I'm not a fan of her connections. That's a shot at horses who really right now are sitting in the catbird's seat with Zenyatta. That somewhat makes me want to root against Z in the Classic.

With that being said, Shirreffs did admit that horse racing did miss out in trying to force a RA/Z matchup instead of enjoying them both. As I've said before the three voting blocks for the Eclipses should have allowed a tie for HOY. I guess somethings will never change.

Here is a little clip of the presser from Ed DeRosa of the Thoroughbred Times (my discription is below the video):



This video is about what she didn't leave Cali except the Apple Blossom (and soon the Classic).



A cute one on Z's quest to find carrots (my guess her favorite treat)

I hope everyone has wonderful weekend of race watching. I'll be back with new posts next week.

All Hail Rachel the Great!

Last night's Eclipse awards finally ended the speculation of who was Horse of the Year. Would it be the stunning Rachel Alexandra, who was eight for eight on the season, or the undefeated Zenyatta who was five for five for the season. Before I talk about HOY, I'm going to go over the other catagories that where also honored last night.

2yo Male: Really it was no suprise that Lookin at Lucky won, and it was well deserved. However when the vote totals came out, Vale of York finished second in first place votes. Why? Just because he was the BC Juvenile winner? Noble's Promises had been a much better horse going into that race then Vale of York, and still is IMO. That being said, Lucky is the very early Derby favorite, and he may not even be the best horse in his own barn anymore.

2yo Female: I really loved Nancy Mazzoni's shout out to She Be Wild ("She Be Wild, we love you!"), I've been a fan of this filly since watching HRTV's Against the Odds when Jeff Sigel picked her for the Arlington Lassie (and this was before I actually had HRTV, I was watching the show on MASN). Hopefully she does well on this year's Oaks Trail.

3yo Male: Obviously dispite being a huge fan of Summer Bird, I'm not a fan of his connections. No offence to his fans, but I find Tim Ice to have annoying voice (sorry!).

3yo Female: Two words: Rachel, unanimous. Enough said. Although I will say that Jess Jackson did not thank Hal Wiggins or Calvin Borel when he accepted this award (a hint of what is to come), and that was disapointing.

Older Male: A well deserved award for Gio Ponti, he did win an award earlier in the night so his owner didn't talk for that long.

Older Female: Dear DRF, Whoever voted for Icon Project, needs to be fired Love a Zenyatta fan. Seriously, she should have been unanimous, but some dingdong (apperently all signs point to the highley respected Andy Beyer) voted for IP (who had 1 G1 win, against really not that great horses), instead of Zen. The cool thing is Sting whose group the Police's album Zenyatta Mondatta, Big Z is named after gave a video congrats!

Female Sprinter: Even though I knew she would win, that doesn't mean I'm disapointed about Informed Decision. She's a synth specialist who peaked at the right time, I'm sorry.

Male Sprinter: Second most disapointing announcement of the night, with Kodiak Kowboy winning. Nice horse, but far from my favorite. Tom Ludt also did not include KK's former trainer, Larry Jones. However, this I'm not as annoyed about as he started and ended his career with Steve Asmussen. In a way though, it ended up being how Zayat's second half of the season went: With a thud. As I said before karma, hated Pioneerof the Nile, and it hated Zensational (both who I think will be failures at stud, but that's a story for another day).

Grass Male: GIO!!!!!! There was a chance that Condiuit would steal it, but thankfully with an upgrade in Team USA grass horses, the award was returned to the States. And the cool thing? He's coming back, expect him and Presious Passion to tear up the grass ranks, and then he most likley will end his career in the BCC (I don't see dirt being a problem for him, he's a 1/2 brother to the G1 placed Bon Jovi Girl).

Grass Female: Most disapointing announcement of the night. Yes Goldikova is a nice horse, but I think most of us where rooting for Ventura. I honestly think that she and Music Note will go down as two of the best horses not to win an Eclipse.

I'm going to skip the human awards, because I will be talking about them later this week.

Horse of the Year: Since the Eclipses started in the 1970's only three females have won the award (before the Eclipses I believe the TRF and DRF gave out two different sets of awards): All Along, Lady's Secret and Azeri. The Sisterhood added a new member to that list. Would it be Zenyatta, or Rachel Alexandra. In the end, the Princess of Racing, was crowned the Queen of 2009 as Rachel won in a unexpected landslide (it was expected the vote to be close). Jess Jackson did thank Calvin Borel this time around, but forgot Hal Wiggins for the second time. This was really the only thing that disapointed me, some people may agree, some people may disagree. That's what opinons are made of.

There was also outcry because Jerry Moss was acting unclassy right after Rachel was announced. I'm not going to comment on that, even though my opinon may shock some people. However I will say that it was classy for both Mr. Jackson and Mr. Moss to congraduate each other's horses. They really didn't have to do that.

A few other things I took out of the ceremony Kenny Mayne > Kenny Rice when it comes to the funny jokes (although I found the Conan joke pretty funny, but it could be because of my dislike of Conan). While Ambasssador Farish was giving his speech, there was a heckler, I really hope they took her out of the room because that was a bit rude (rumor has it she said California, and they told her to be quite, but she said no).

I do want to appologize for not having a Weekend Recap post, I got involved with the Golden Globes. But just a little bit of a recap, it was a hit and miss weekend. I do want to thank everyone who particpated in yesterday's chat, I plan on doing the chats most likely once a month up to Derby on Mondays for about an hour or so. Check back here for more details in the upcoming weeks.

Simply the Best: Zenyatta

Unfortanlly the video doesn't allow embedding, so here is a link to Tina Turner's Simply the Best. And that's what Zenyatta was on Saturday.

I had planned to do a full recap of each of the 14 races on today, but this girl deserves her own post tonight. What an historic achivement that she did, first female to ever win the Breeders' Cup Classic something Azeri couldn't do. The question is do can you deny her Horse of the Year, I say no. However, I also think Rachel Alexandra deserves Horse of the Year as well. That's right I think there should be Co-Horse of the Year, they both deserve it. It's really a shame that they are not going to face each other, that would have settled the confusion and we may have had a clear cut Horse of the Year. And people like to blame one connections over the other, I'm going to blame both. Jess Jackson should have brought Rachel to Santa Anita and Jerry Moss should have brought Zenyatta to Belmont or Saratoga. What Santa Anita have done is make special accomandations for Rachel and NYRA should have excused Zenyatta from going to the detention barn. Unfortnally that was never ment to be, and they stayed their seperate paths. This is going to be an interesting debate for the rest of the year and we won't know till January of who will be HOY. Until then let's enjoy the Amazon that is Zenyatta Mondatta (the full title of the Police album that she is named after, of course Jerry Moss is the M in A & M Records where the Police made their name in the US.)




Congrats to John and Dottie Shirreffs, her trainer and the racing manager for her owners respectivly, jockey Mike Smith, Jerry and Ann Moss her owners, the entire Shirreffs barn for their sweep of the Ladies Classic and Classic, and of course Zenyatta's parents Street Cry and Vertigineux.
Tomorrow I will recap the rest of the 2 days of action and then will be taking the rest of the week off to recover from an exciting two days of racing. Starting next week I'll be sharing some of my favorite races of the year, plus comparing this year's 3yo's to one of my favorite 3yo year 2007. Also I will be starting to share stories of retired thoroughbred race horses in the upcoming weeks.