Hail the Conquering Hero

Originally posted in my column at Smilepolitely.com:

We will never see another horse like Zenyatta; she is the kind of horse that impresses not only in her heart-stopping stretch drives, but as an individual, pawing at the ground post-race like a Spanish fighting bull ready to charge the cape-wielding matador. If anyone had any doubts as to the extent of her greatness, as to whether or not she deserves to be ranked in the pantheon of the all-time Greats of the sport, their doubts were shattered to oblivion this past Saturday when the undefeated mare was tested against the most decorated field in Breeders' Cup Classic history. Zenyatta had every right to lose this day, and still she was able to pull herself together and push her talents to new heights, turning away this class field and embarrassing them and anyone who had dared to doubt her brilliance. Zenyatta not only became the first female horse to win the Breeders' Cup Classic, she won the hearts of everyone who was lucky enough to witness her amazing display of athleticism, turning her enemies to allies, her naysayers to her biggest flatterers.

And how fitting is it that Zenyatta be named after a classic rock 'n roll album? The mare prances and struts like a rock star; she is in essence a horse with the soul of Robert Plant, combined with the brilliance of Jimi Hendrix. It is not just Zenyatta's thrilling running style that makes her exciting to watch, but her swagger and savoir fare, dancing to each bout like a boxer on her toes, nostrils flared, mane tossing, neck bowed and bulging. Her girth alone imposes the average horse, and coupled with her reputation, it's surprising more challengers didn't try to flee the gate once they saw they were going up against Goliath incarnate. For any one of these traits, a horse should be coveted, but for a single horse to bare them all makes Zenyatta a living legend.

While Zenyatta's career has been marked by seemingly effortless victories, and most would agree she could've beaten any female in her sleep, the Breeders' Cup Classic should've proven the undoing for this great mare. Her season thus far had developed as nothing more than a less-impressive repeat of last year's same string of races, minus the Apple Blossom, and many wondered if Zenyatta had peaked and would have her unbeaten streak snapped in a test against classy males. In the 2009 edition of the Clement L. Hirsche Stakes at Del Mar, the big race mare won only by the smallest of margins, and it wasn't clear whether her regular rider, Mike Smith, had reacted too late or Zenyatta's brilliance was beginning to fade; but her return to form in the Lady's Secret proved she wasn't done yet.

Mercifully, Jerry and Ann Moss decided to take a chance with their undefeated mare and enter her in the Breeders' Cup Classic when the challenge was already shaping up to be a race for the ages, with the decision being entrusted to Mike Smith, who ultimately seemed to have the last word. It was all or nothing; Zenyatta would either prove her class against some of the best horses in the world, or she would succumb to the pressures of facing the toughest test she'd yet have to face. But she saw their challenge and called it.

Zenyatta walked into the history books the same way she pranced into every race prior, two-stepping and pawing the dirt, bowing her neck and putting on a parade for the fans packed ten-deep just to catch a glimpse of her. She would not be outshone by any Kentucky Derby or Belmont winner, or even an Arlington Million or a Queen Elizabeth II winner; going off as the overwhelming favorite, the crowd had come to see the California Colossus battle the rest in the biggest race of the year.

Scripted like a Hollywood movie, the drama before the race equaled the heart-palpitating finish. A chorus of gasps could be heard from the crowd as Zenyatta refused to enter the starting gate. Never having had a history of bad gate behavior, tensions rose as the heavy favorite was backed out and a flock of starters attempted to guide the giant mare back inside the start. Whether it was her proximity to males, her wide girth making her claustrophobic, or the sound of the helicopter overhead making her anxious, the sight of the usually collected superhorse balking at the start was enough to create a contagious spike in blood pressure in the Santa Anita grandstands.

After Zenyatta was urged inside the gate and Mike Smith remounted her saddle, a second event stalled the $5 million-dollar race. The nervous Quality Road, record-setting winner for the Amsterdam Stakes and a brilliant Florida Derby, also refused to go into the starting gate, and as he was blindfolded and urged inside, the sound of the choppers covering the race sent him into a frenzy. Never before had a Breeders' Cup race begun with such a frightening gate scene: the multiple million-dollar horse reared up in the starting gate while blindfolded, bucked and kicked open the gate, and almost got away from the starters as the rest of the field stood locked in their respective post positions. To make matters on the other horses worse, after the gates had been shaken by the delinquent Road, and the talented bay was backed out of the gates and scratched from the race, each horse that had been standing quietly in their posts was also taken out. Mentally, this was a disaster for these creatures of habit. While horses are schooled in the mornings to overcome such adversities as gate issues, breaking habit tends to confuse them and can work up a horse to run more aggressively than he normally would, or cause them not to break well at all.

The latter was the case for Zenyatta. While she has a patented gate break, slow and trailing at the back of the field, when the Classic was finally able to start and the horses were free to burst in a flurry of hoofs and screaming jockeys, the great mare hesitated. For a split-second, an eternity in horse racing, Zenyatta was standing still as the rest of the horses were sprinting away from her. Mike Smith told Blood-Horse, "We got her back in the gate, and she was standing so still I didn't want to move her. But I was a little worried when the gates opened she wouldn't move period, and she didn't. I thought, 'Oh God, no, not today.'"

But Zenyatta did eventually pick up her feet and begin to track the rest of the horses, falling at the back of the 13-horse field behind the last horse, Derby winner Mine That Bird, who also has a penchant for lagging dead last in a field before making a late-closing kick. For all intensive purposes, the start of the Classic was a complete disaster for Zenyatta. After breaking late, she began running on the wrong lead and was tossing her head. Her previous races had proven she may need to be a little closer to horses when coming from off the pace, but here she was running a $5-million dollar race of the year dead last and giving the lead horses more than a ten-length head start.

But the picture looked rosier for Zenyatta when Mine That Bird finally began to trail her; the race was beginning to take the shape Smith had imagined all along. The great mare was now running comfortably, and she was working into a good rhythm. The Classic began to mirror all the other races she had run before, just letting the rest of the field have their run while she waited patiently on their heels.

But as the field turned for home, the horses began to stack six wide at the final turn, and Mike Smith made the move that reminded us just why he is a Hall of Fame jockey. Instead of steering the big mare on the outside, as the team had become accustomed to in nearly every race before, the jockey took her in between horses in tight quarters to keep her from losing ground. "Zenyatta, if she wins this, she'll be a superhorse...," Trevor Denman called grimly to the crowd of 58,854 rapt fans. Masterfully, masterfully, Smith took her upon the backside of Summer Bird, the East Coast classics winner, and then the unsung Euro, Twice Over, and as she swung outside of that great blanket of champion horseflesh, California sunshine washed over her. California sunshine is to Zenyatta as spinach is to Popeye the Sailor Man. Finally, the stretch was all hers, and Zenyatta was allowed to stretch her great invisible wings; her immense stride unleashed with the force of a bomb blowing the rest of the competition to smithereens.

"This—is—un-be-lievable! Zenyatta, what a performance! One we'll never forget! Looked impossible!" Denman called breathlessly.

Just like in her thirteen previous races, she coasted to victory with ears pricking, galloping out without so much as a sweat. How fitting it was she returned home in her final race to the roar of Santa Anita's grandstands, the hallowed old race place that stands as the capitol for California racing. She ruled over the state with an unequaled authority, and cast down those world invaders who dared to challenger her on her home turf.

Jimi Hendrix, Robert Plant, eat your heart out. While rock stars may send us to dizzying heights of musical ecstasy, Zenyatta is the impossible package. She is undeniably brilliant; she is an untested, invincible champion that will live on in all the hearts and minds of those who were lucky enough to be alive to see her. And just like these immortal rock stars, her brilliance will be remembered far after she's gone. Zenyatta will be around for as long as we let horses do what they were born to do; she will be the phantom turning for home and circling the others with her Earth-gobbling stride, and will live in the warm, enriching breath of each California sunrise.

Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta: Living Legends

Originally posted here in my column, The Call to the Post

It's hard to get my mind wrapped around the fact that I'm living in an age I've always longed for. Even though the phenomenon has snuck upon us, it's safe to say that right now, this very minute in time, we're witnessing something very unique in the sport of horse racing. At this moment, on opposite sides of the country, are two special horses either getting an afternoon nap or perhaps a nibble of sugar cubes; to the naked eye, oh yes, they would appear to be the kind of race horse any owner or trainer would aspire to have. But looks are deceiving. If every horse could run as good as he looked, there would be Triple Crowns won every year. But these two, one a 3-year-old filly, the other a 5-year-old mare, are exactly as good as they look.

No one ever could've predicted we'd be seeing two modern marvels in the year 2009, two imposing female horses that will undoubtedly leave their impressions stamped in the history books for all of time. I never got to see the great Secretariat. I never got to see Man o' War or Ruffian, Spectacular Bid or Seattle Slew. But I got to see Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta. Here we are, in a few span of months for the ages, a time when people thirty years from now will be looking at us with wonder in their eyes and whisper, "You got to see Rachel Alexandra?"

I was there. I never thought I'd be able to say I'd seen a Great, because it's so hard to know precisely what that is until you see it for yourself.

Now I know.

I know because of the sort of disbelief that overcame me when Rachel Alexandra swung into the final turn of the Haskell and began to separate herself from the rest of the field. That's not something just any horse could've done. Her competitors were decorated: a Belmont winner, an Arkansas Derby winner, an up-coming superstar. It takes a freak to spit in the faces of horses like that and run away for fun. That's what Greatness is.

The same can be said for Zenyatta, but on a different level. I was shocked after watching Zenyatta's last race, the Clement L. Hirsch Stakes, where she just barely won her twelfth race in a row. To the naked eye, it wasn't clear if she'd actually made it to the wire before the track ran out. Did the undefeated Zenyatta get foiled by a dirty head-bob? The idea that Zenyatta could be beaten by a horse nothing much better than a claimer stunned me so badly, I sat on my couch, jaw ajar, simply staring as the crowd at Del Mar shrieked and ebbed like a cage full of monkeys.

But those people were cheering-that's what stunned me. Zenyatta shouldn't have won the Grade I Clement Hirsch Stakes by a head, she should've won that race by 10 lengths, at worst. What in the heck just happened? Suddenly, this great unbeaten mare looked like a laughing-stock in comparison to the filly two years her junior, Rachel Alexandra, who'd just beaten a field of incomparably tough colts by 6 in the Grade I Haskell Invitational.

In her start prior to the Hirsch, Zenyatta was spotting the rest of the field at least seven pounds, carrying a career-high of 129 in the Vanity Handicap. Handicap races are supposed to make the field more "even" by holding back the horses with a better chance of winning. I understood Zenyatta would have a tougher time winning by much carrying 129 pounds in the Vanity, which she ended up winning by 2 1/2-lengths. But the Clement Hirsch had recently been stripped of its handicap status and had been turned into a stakes race. A stakes race against nobody special, ab-so-lute-ly nobody.

But then I realized something. The way Zenyatta was positioned in the Clement Hirsch, she should've lost. There was absolutely no way a normal horse could've won that race in Zenyatta's position. Just in the same way it took a freak filly like Rachel Alexandra to laugh at that field of colts and win by 6, it took a freak to run the entire race with slow fractions, let the leader run away, go six-wide around the turn while spinning out, and then rocket down the stretch at 40 miles per hour to win the race by a head. That doesn't happen. Not with a five-year-old mare the size of a house, not with anybody.

After the race, Mike Smith said with a smile, "Wasn't that something! I thought I had it... But I've got to admit I underestimated the company we were keeping today. They made her run."

Yes, it's true, Mikey gave her a bad ride. The Clement Hirsch was a reminder of Smith's latest debacle, when he tried a move too early with Mine That Bird in the West Virginia Derby and finished a tired and unimpressive third on the Derby winner. People make mistakes. Freaks fix them.

There's a lot of talk going on right now about setting up a match race between Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra. I'll tell you why that's a bad idea: match races are inherently a bad idea. No horseman in his right mind would ever want to put his charge in a match race knowing what we do now about those race situations (But that's a whole 'nother article).

I will say a race between these two champions would be the race of the century-but it would have to be a legitimate race with at least three other starters besides them. As to what would happen, I'm leaving that up to the horse racing gods, since both Rachel and Zenyatta seem to have an angel on their shoulder. Until that day happens, and it may never transpire, we should be grateful we are living right now, and can turn on the TV or go to the track and see these living legends do what they do best: amaze us, time and time again.