My Early BL/BL for Zenyatta race

[JimG]

Just worked the 8th race at Hollywood for today and here is my BL/BL screen. May want to tread lightly with Zenyatta today. After all, I thought Cigar was a cinch for 17 in a row. But he did not Dare and Go.

Jim

[mikesal57]

Zenyatta's toughest race was when the pace was real slow

but she still overcame it ..

this race doesnt look fast at all but this true champion will not get in that situation ever again.

mike

[alydar_ David]

Zenyatta is a "single" for me in the multi-race wagers. Although I'm a little surprised there wasn't more of a BL/BL gap.

[Ted Craven]

I was away all weekend and missed this race, but watched it this morning and nearly had a heart attack (as did a few others on the video).




I missed Secretariat's days, caught some of Cigar's career, but I'm sure glad I'm around to see this!

[JEFF KENT]

Anbody that says St.trinians is not a tough foe had better check thier vision.
That was a monster effort by St.trin. SUPER SHARP AND GAME EFFORT,Ithought the big mare was going down to defeat,I wish that all my picks would run that tough. Zenyatta is probably the best mare I have ever seen. She was sold for $60,000 stud fee $150,000 Iwonder what they
were thinking at that auction,probably that she was so big that she woudnt stay sound.

[tfm]

Coming in to the race, St Trinians had 2 very good efforts out of 4 wins. As such, she's a notch above the typical horse. She was supposed to beat Zenyatta yesterday, however. Garcia, for all the praise he's been receiving lately (I've yet to understand why, as he's nothing more than an average jock at best) clearly moved her TOO SOON. The idea is to put ST in a position where Z doesn't have enough ground to run her down. Moving to the leaders on the turn, in hand or otherwise, was clearly not the best way to accomplish this. Smith was keying on ST, knowing full well that she was the one to beat --- she could get Zardana pretty much anytime she wanted to in the stretch. Unfortunately, while Garcia was instructed to key on Z, and thus stay ahead of her, he also was influenced by Zardana. ST could've also gotten Zardana anytime she wanted to. The idea, of course, was to let Zardana go to the speed on the turn, then go get her in the stretch. By doing so, ST would've built up an insurmountable lead on Zenyatta. By going to the leaders WITH Zardana on the turn, Garcia negated his advantage and got his game mare run down.

Of course, this only proves how exceptional Zenyatta is. Then again, most of us already know that. Pretty hard to imagine any other horse (presently in training) running down ST in that race.

[classhandicapper]

The most amazing part of Zenyatta is that when she hits her highest gear, she appears to be massively better than other very good horses. Even in this last race, the last 1/8th was in 11.61 (impressive on its own), but I'd be willing to bet she ran the last 16th at an even faster rate than that when all seemed lost. Final times and margins of victory simply cannot measure what she's capable of when she needs to call upon reserves that other horses don't have. As terrific a mare as St. Trinians is and as excellent as she ran in the Vanity, IMO the gap between them is larger than the margin.

[tfm]

Early on, when watching Curlin run, it became apparent to me that he was just 'pushing a higher gear' than his peers. This is track cycling term that adapts very nicely to horse racing. It means that a given cyclist has the ability to spin a higher/harder gear than most of the others; this equates to a LONGER chainline (a smaller cog). So, this cyclist's 'spin' is longer than that of his competitors, which means that it takes him longer to spin a revolution but once he gets it going he's able to go faster. A cyclist that has the ability to spin a higher/longer gear will thus have an advantage in terms of speed --- it'll be harder to get it going but once he does he'll be able to go faster (cover more ground) with LESS revolutions. The only way this cyclist get beat is if he is forced to PUSH this big gear TOO FAST TOO SOON.

A perfect example of this in another sport is Usain Bolt. Typically, taller runners don't make the best sprinters because they just can't get their legs moving fast enough to compete with their more compact contemporaries. Bolt is the exception. Early on, he was at an additional disadvantage in that he wasn't able to break as well as the others and was always running from far behind. As he learned to get better starts, he became UNBEATABLE. His stride is LONGER than that of the others (higher gear) and once he gets it going he covers more ground than they do. Simply put, he can't be beaten.

Same principal applies to Zenyatta. She's a big horse with a very long stride and once she gets going she'll run ANYTHING down. Her ability to push this 'higher gear' is so pronounced that it doesn't really matter whether they go fast or slow ahead of her: as long as she has a reasonable amount of ground to make up the difference, she'll ALWAYS get it done. And, her connections fully understand this is. Moreover, by running from the rear (notice I didn't write 'off the pace' because what she does is not determined by numeric pace) she's never in danger of pushing that big gear too hard too soon.

[classhandicapper]

Excellent analogy.