The Breeders’ Cup Classic is often the defining race for Horse of the Year because of what it represents – the central meeting point for 3 year olds and older horse at a classic distance on the dirt.  It’s a race that everyone gears their campaigns toward so there are no excuses – a championship event.  Those factors are not present in this year’s event.  For starters, the race isn’t on dirt.  Some may want to bury their heads in the sand and pretend otherwise, but synthetics are a completely separate surface and most horses have different ability levels on each.  Some, like Santa Anita’s Pro-Ride surface bear little resemblance to dirt and, in fact, appear to favor turf ability and running styles more than dirt form. American racing is built around dirt.  That’s what we’re about and that’s what we reward in our year-end balloting.  Running a race on a non-dirt surface and calling it a “championship” or a ”Breeders’ Cup” race doesn’t make it any more meaningful or impactful or make it any more relevant a measure of dirt ability.  It’s not.  You simply cannot apply the same weight to a “championship” event run on Pro-Ride that you would to a normal Breeders’ Cup Classic run on dirt.

Further diluting the value of a Breeders’ Cup Classic win this year is the quality of the field – or lack thereof.  The 2009 handicap division is the weakest I can ever recall.  There are simply no elite older horses this year.  Horses like Macho Again and Bullsbay and Dry Martini would be also-rans in most years, not trading wins in major Grade 1 races.  It’s just mind-boggling to see major handicap races won with BSF’s barely breaking 100.  In fact, the highest Beyer speed figure recorded by an older male this entire year is a 111 (Rail Trip & Solar Flare).  That’s astounding.  That the Whitney was won by a horse who had never previously exceeded a 100 BSF pretty much says it all about this division.  Add to the fact that Rachel Alexandra and Sea The Stars won’t be in the field and it’s hard to argue that winning the Classic is particularly significant in any way other than purse value to the winning connections.  Yes – there are some good Europeans coming over (and they will probably win) but they are grass horses and this is closer to a grass race than a dirt race.  What it is not is a race that should be the primary determinant of the 2009 Horse of the Year.

With all of the above said, let’s take a quick look at the individual candidates:

RACHEL ALEXANDRA – Needs no introduction.  8-for-8 this year including 5 Grade 1′s and 3 G1 wins against males.  Yes she went to sidelines a month early, but she ran one of the most ambitious campaigns for a 3-year old filly in many years.  She beat males while encountering exceptionally difficult trips and pace scenarios and absolutely demolished her 3 yo filly counterparts – albeit weak ones.  Her 8 wins also took place over 7 different racetracks in 6 different states.  At every path her connections challenged her.  They traveled, they faced 3 yo males in the Preakness and Haskell, they faced older males in the Woodward.  That ambition need to be rewarded.  That mentality is what we need in racing these days in this era where it’s all too common to see top horses never face each other and avoid top competition except for a few select races each year.

SUMMER BIRD – He has matured into a very nice horse and has put together a solid resume.  It seems odd to say that a horse who wins the Belmont, Travers, Jockey Club Gold Cup, & Breeders’ Cup Classic shouldn’t be Horse of the Year, but he shouldn’t.  There are 3 primary reasons why:

1. A Breeders Cup Classic win isn’t as significant as usual.  See above!

2. Summer Bird did absolutely nothing prior to the Belmont.  He was beaten 13 lengths in the Kentucky Derby and had only a Maiden win to his credit prior to the Belmont.  Should he win the BC Classic his record would be 9-5-1-1 with 4 Grade 1 victories.  Impressive but hardly exceptional.

3 – Most importantly, Rachel Alexandra blew Summer Bird away in the Haskell – beating him by 6.  Summer Bird has done nothing wrong, but his credentials with a win in the Classic certainly wouldn’t substantially exceed Rachel Alexandra’s – and in the face of otherwise similar accomplishments a decisive head-to-head win has to be the deciding factor.

ZENYATTA – I previously discussed her campaign and what a disservice her connections have done to her legacy by managing her so conservatively.  This is a horse whose campaign to date defines the concept of taking the path of least resistance.  She will run 5 times – all on synthetics – never leaving California, shying away from any matchups with Rachel Alexandra and never facing males until possibly the Classic.  Obviously if she doesn’t go in the Classic this is all a moot point, but even if she does it is definitely a case of too little too late.  All season long Zenyatta’s connections never looked for a challenge with their champion – and it wasn’t like they had to look very hard.  Having already proven that she was better than California’s older filly & mare contingent, there was no obvious reason to avoid races like the Hollywood Gold Cup or Pacific Classic.  Heck, even her stablemate Life Is Sweet who was on the same schedule at the time ran in the Hollywood Gold Cup.  NYRA desperately tried to arrange a meeting with Rachel Alexandra in the Beldame but her connections publicly shied away from that as well citing the value of the Breeders’ Cup as the meeting place for such an event.  That type of thinking cannot be rewarded.  The Breeders’ Cup is indeed the day to crown champions, but not at the expense of the entire rest of the year.

Bottom line is that even with a win in the Classic, Zenyatta would be 5-for-5 with 4 Grade 1 wins.  She’s had fewer wins than Rachel, fewer Grade 1 wins, and a far less impressive campaign overall.  Where Rachel Alexandra’s connections looked for challenges, Zenyatta’s connection avoided them.  From a public policy perspective you want to reward the connections who campaigned aggressively, not the ones who took the path of least resistance at every available turn.

Then there’s the head-to-head comparison.  If you look only at their races vs females, Rachel Alexandra is 5-for 5 while Zenyatta is 4-for-4.  Obviously Rachel faced inferior horses as a 3 yo filly, but she absolutely dominated her competition – winning races like the Kentucky Oaks and Mother Goose by 20 and 19 lengths.  Zenyatta meanwhile was life and death to beat Annaba’s Creation and won her races in a manner than was much more workmanlike than brilliant or fast.  Should she win this less-meaningful-than-usual Breeders’ Cup Classic it would certainly be an impressive accomplishment for Zenyatta’s legacy, but should that win really count more than a combination of wins in the Preakness, Haskell, and Woodward by a 3 year old filly?  Of course not.  At the end of the day Rachel’s campaign was simply better and more impressive in every way and is far more deserving of reward than Zenyatta’s.  Had Zenyatta run more than 5 times, thrown in a win on dirt or outside California, or another win against males, or shown interest in facing Rachel Alexandra when the powers that be were trying to set up the showdown, then maybe she’d have a case. But she didn’t.  Her connections never challenged her and at this point she’s trailing Rachel by a lot more ground than she could make up with a single Breeders’ Cup Classic victory – particularly one accomplished without beating her primary competition for the title.  Also keep in mind that if the racing season ended right now she wouldn’t even be # 2 in line and perhaps not even # 3 based on what she’s done to date.  It’s about accomplishments THIS YEAR, not reputation and legacy.

Normally the Breeders’ Cup Classic is the culmination of a year of major dirt races.  This year it is not.  It’s a watered-down event on a synthetic surface that plays closer to turf than dirt.  The championship dirt racing season in the US ended earlier this month for all intents and purposes…and at that finish line Rachel Alexandra is comfortably in front by any reasonable measure of comparison.

Rachel Alexandra is your 2009 Horse of the Year regardless of what happens in the Breeders’ Cup.

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Beldame – 6 weeks ago this race was being offered as a potential stage for a Rachel-Zenyatta meeting with the possibility of Icon Project & Careless Jewel being part of the field as well.  Instead it turned into a workout for Music Note with only Unbridled Belle offering any type of G1 form in opposition.  Unbridled Belle got loose on a pretty easy lead, but Music Note was still able to pass her and win in hand, running a very legit figure.

Music Note is a horse that I feel like we never really got to see just how good she is.  She got very good very quickly last year and showed an ability to finish with extremely strong final quarters.  She wasn’t sensationally fast, but as an AP Indy she figured to keep maturing.  Plus, several of her races were little more than public workouts where she simply laid over the field and barely had to run at all.  She ran well in the BC against Zenyatta but the race is a toss for me since it was on synthetics.  Music Note didn’t return until the middle of this year – where she ran inexplicably awful.  Following another small layoff she came back to run huge – defeating Indian Blessing in the 7F Ballerina.   Should she conclude her career with yesterday’s pretty effortless win and another BC race on synthetics we will really not have had the chance to see her truly strut her stuff in a stakes race going a route on the dirt in quite a long time.   Music Note clearly has gotten faster and better at 4 – as her breeding indicated was likely – so I’m definitely disappointed to not get a real season out of her.  I think it’s possible that she may have been able to take that leap and be “special” (ie – The type of horse who can blow a good field away with a powerful closing kick and run 110-type Beyer figures) but due to a combination of circumstances and the BC’s ridiculous decision to run on synthetics, she’ll likely just go down as another in a long line of “what-ifs.”

Vosburgh – 400k for a prestigious Grade 1 sprint on dirt and just 4 horses show up?!  Hard to figure.  The Forego had a full field a few weeks ago.  You would have made 12k just for walking around the track and finishing 5th!  Talented bunch at least.  It’s hard not to love Fabulous Strike.  He’s extremely fast and he’s been on the scene for several years.  I feel like yesterday’s might be the first sign that age is catching up with him.  Watching him get a perfect trip sitting off Go Go Shoot, going by at will, and opening up a couple lengths in stretch, it was tough to imagine that Kodiak Kowboy would be able to mow him down.  The last time that happened (Carter), Fabulous Strike dueled through an insane 1/2 and had to negotiate an extra furlong.  Yesterday he looked like he’d win easily, but surprisingly Kodiak Kowboy ran him down.

Time to give Munnings a rest.  He looked like he might be a sensational sprinter but since his attempted stretch out in the Haskell he clearly isn’t the same animal anymore.

Flower Bowl – I wrote yesterday about Queen of Hearts so it was definitely exciting to see her run a good 3rd.  This was a tough race and my only thought was that Pure Clan would be around.  I didn’t like Dynaforce much who, despite loving a soft turf, doesn’t appear to be the same filly as she was last year.   In the Beverly D she got a perfect trip sitting close to a very slow pace and still didn’t run nearly as well as she had last year.  I got lucky when longshots ran 2nd and 3rd to Pure Clan to make for a nice super, but a look at the fractions over the ridiculously soft turf tells you all you need to know about this race.

Turf Classic – My friend asked if there was any shot that the favorites could be beaten in this race.  I replied “the only real chance is if Musketier steals the race on the front end since there isn’t much speed and his best races aren’t too far off Gio Ponti’s.”  So what happens?  Interpretation, who has never sniffed the lead (and rarely the winner’s circle for that matter) in his long career, goes to lead and has enough left to put away Gio Ponti in the stretch.  I didn’t play Musketier strongly, but this is why racing is maddening sometimes.  The trip that Interpretation got was exactly what Musketier should have been doing.  I can only theorize that his connections decided to take back because he faded so badly last time – but that’s because he dueled through insane fractions in the Sword Dancer.  His prior 2 efforts on the lead both produced solid efforts (100-102 Beyers and a G3 win and a second to Gio Ponti).  For them to sit lengths off a confirmed closer in Interpretation in a race where the early leader essentially goes wire to wire is simply poor strategy.  As for Gio Ponti, there were questions about his ability to get 12 furlongs going in.  Hard to put too much stock in a race like this given the conditions, but the fact that he went by Interpretation and couldn’t put him away is definitely a black mark against him regardless of circumstances.

Some interesting stats on the great Interpretation (who I actually like since I’ve used him successfully many times in the 2nd and 3rd slots).

• Off the board in all 6 prior starts this year
  
• His last win came on Sept 15, 2007 at Philadelphia Park – with 17 straight losses in between
• That race snapped a 1-year and 10-race losing streak as well
• Couldn’t finish in the top half of a 6-horse field at Philadelphia Park last time out

I think it’s safe to say that Gio Ponti’s longshot Horse of the Year chances just evaporated!

Jockey Club Gold Cup – Summer Bird is developing into a very nice horse.  Nice to see Quality Road return to his spring form.   It’s too bad he was rushed into the Travers without proper foundation.  It would have been very interesting to see how good he would have gotten if he had progressed normally rather than going straight from 6.5F to 10F.  At this point it will take a 2009 Breeders’ Cup Classic win by Mine That Bird to deny Summer Bird the 3 yo title.  Given what has been said about Summer Bird’s poor training over synthetics in the spring, I’d pass the BC Classic with him and just prepare him for an early start to his 4 yo campaign.  He’ll win the title anyway unless Mine That Bird sometime pulls off a Classic win – and right now his stock is as high as ever.  Why risk it on a surface he purportedly doesn’t like?

I ‘d love to see Quality Road come back in the Cigar Mile and then have a proper 4 year old season where he’s not playing catch-up.

Macho Again reverted to previous form without an advantageous pace setup like he received in his prior 2 starts.

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