But now it's time to chime in before the Breeders' Cup. I will try to make this short. Rachel Alexandra is Horse of the Year. No matter what happens this weekend.
Zenyatta can win the Breeders' Cup Classic by 32 lengths. It doesn't matter. If one race determines Horse of the Year, the award will be a farce. It was a farce in 2004 when Ghostzapper won _ by a lot _ over Smarty Jones. Are you kidding me? Smarty Jones won every single race in his life except his last one, he was beaten in the final strides of the Belmont Stakes. Not many horses have done for racing what Smarty Jones did until his dramatic defeat by Birdstone. Of course, the owners were villified for supposedly waffling on whether their horse was healthy or not, and then retired him for huge sums of money. Isn't that what horse racing has come to? And then the nearly universally despised Frank Stronach plays the sympathy card, saying Ghostzapper, who had run all of 3 _ count 'em! _ races that year, would not only be in the Classic, but would keep running, unlike that turncoat Smarty Jones. And the voters bought it. They voted Ghostzapper, 4-for-4 and without a race the first half of the year, Horse of the Year over Smarty Jones, a mere 8-for-8 before the Belmont _ , winner of the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness. Get real people. And now, thanks to ESPN/ABC -- oh thanks for televising nationally all the Rachel Alexandra races over the summer -- Zenyatta has a chance to win Horse of the Year if she can beat the boys in the Classic. Sorry, too late. I love Zenyatta, a gorgeous mare who has never lost. She has beaten every female she's faced, sometimes in dramatic fashion. She ventured away from California's synthetic surfaces only once - and won in Arkansas. Woo hoo. However, it has been Rachel who has lifted racing this year, given it the star it so dearly longs for, a filly who may just be the best female horse ever _ EVER! She is expected to run next year as a 4-year-old, too.
Zenyatta has beaten the likes of Lethal Heat, Cocoa Beach and Hystericalady; Rachel has beaten every 3-year-old filly thrown her way _ by a lot; and then beat the Derby winner, the Belmont winner and the likes of Bullsbay, Macho Again, Munnings and Musket Man. She won the Preakness, the Haskell and the Woodward -- three wins over the boys -- and older boys, too. Rachel is 8-for-8 in 2009, and her owner says he won't run her on synthetics because he doesn't like the surface. Zenyatta would be 5-for-5 with a Classic win. It's Horse of the Year, not Horse of the Career. No matter what happens in the Classic, the vote shouldn't be close. It should be unanimous.
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