Spoiler Alert: Reigning Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra came in second in the Personal Ensign at Saratoga on Sunday. While I actually wasn’t surprised that she lost, I was really taken aback by how many people were happy she got beat.
Players who bet on horses other than Rachel Alexandra aside, why would you want Rachel Alexandra to lose unless, of course, you’re a rival owner, trainer, etc? In the eyes of the public, horse racing is a dying sport. Right now, we have two superstars in Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra. Wouldn’t it be the best thing for our sport for those two to keep on winning? What positives come from Rachel losing?
About an hour after Persistently hit the wire ahead of RA, I received a call from my uncle who was in California for the Pacific Classic. He said he was at an Indian Casino in San Diego where he watched Rachel run. My uncle said he was really surprised by the uproar he heard when Rachel Alexandra was defeated. Obviously, he was in the middle of Zenyatta country. My question is, does Rachel losing make Zenyatta look better? Does Rachel losing benefit all of those people in some way? For a sport that needs all the positive attention it can possible get, I just don’t understand the joy that a Rachel Alexandra loss brought to so many people.
I’ll be the first to admit that I root against many professional sports teams and even specific players. I go into each baseball year hoping the Yankees go 0-162. For a variety of reasons (mostly their overall cockiness) I’ll go into this football season hoping the Jets miss the playoffs. And I pray each night that Alex Rodriguez goes 0-5 with five strikeouts the next day.
The difference is baseball doesn’t need the Yankees or Alex Rodriguez to be a successful sport. The NFL doesn’t need the Jets to go 12-4 in order to make money. They’ll both be fine either way. Horse racing needs superstars to help attract new fans. It might sound weird to those of us die-hard racing fans, but I bet there are many people who drove the bus of the Rachel Alexandra fan club last year who don’t care about her this year because she finished second three times.
With that said, why is it that people cheer for Rachel to lose more? Doesn’t make too much sense to me.
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To say the last couple of weeks haven’t been the smoothest of my life would be a slight understatement. There’s been a lot of blood, sweat, almost a few tears, and not many smiles over that time. But while counting coupons last week (um, yes, that’s a lot of fun), I tried a tactic that always seems to cheer me up. Country music. For some reason, there’s something about country music that is just plain fun. It seems like I can hear any song and become happier than I was. During coupon counting on Sunday (isn’t that what all of you do on Sundays?), I stumbled across a nugget from the past. The artist is Brad Paisley and the song is titled “Online.” Check it out on Youtube and you tell me how you can’t watch that music video and smile. Believe it or not, but a couple of hours of counting coupons actually de-funkified me thanks to those southern tunes. And hoping to keep the good luck streak alive, I watched the CMA Music Festival on ABC.
During commercials of the CMA Music Festival last night, I switched over to watch the Mets lose again. (Did they actually end up losing? I was just playing the odds.) I saw that the Atlanta Braves had signed Rick Ankiel – that deal probably happened a year ago, but I only realized it now. It made me think – how perfect of an Atlanta Brave is Rick Ankiel? On a team forever based on pitching and defense, that never has any superstars (not counting the pitchers), and is relatively quite in the terms of media coverage (compared to the Yankees and Red Sox), the Braves are always good. Why? Because, year-in and year-out, they’re a team with gritty, hard working, blue collar players. Add Rick Ankiel – who when he was younger, was a dominant left-handed pitcher who completely lost it mentally and couldn’t throw a strike. He literally would throw pitches into the screen behind the catcher. Instead of giving up, he worked to turn himself into an outfielder and is back in the major leagues. Now he’s with the Braves, having a solid year, and right in the middle of the playoff hunt. Just like the Braves always are.
Brad Thomas’ Thursday Theories
Saratoga’s Travers Day card always produces dozens of horses destined for future success. This year, the strong competition was very much influenced by a powerful inside speed bias on dirt. In seven races, not a single winner moved wide all the way, all six sprints were taken by pace horses, and the single rallying winner was inside all the way in the mile and a quarter Travers, a contest featuring a fast pace and a field of modestly talented horses ill-suited for the classic distance.
In Race 9, returnee My Jen was pace-stung moving wide against the inside grain and should appreciate the more spacious Belmont oval.
In Race 10, First Passage improved against the double bias and with no pace help. She, too, can move forward at Belmont.
In Race 11, returnee Hurricane Ike verified his early season improvement going a distance too short off the bench. He was off slow from an inside post, was used hard trying to move into a sizzling pace, and held very decently despite being in tough position. A mile around one-turn is perfect and a middle distance two-bends likely would work as well.
Monmouth Park Trip Notes
August 28
Race 1 – Whodat Say Whodat was overmatched off a mini-layoff, set a fast pace against a strong double bias, and still finished far in front of all his early foes. Dropping in both claiming price and into the state-bred ranks would help him immensely.
Race 4 – Sinner’s Repent moved decently late on a dull rail in a cycle-forward try off the claim by an underrated barn and A Bit of Madness set extremely fast fractions while racing against the profound grain.
Race 5 – Max Hazard improved on the drop racing against the bias and still managing to put away the contest favorite in a pace fight. He still has room for another drop.
Race 9 – My Lily Lane was too far back early to make a dent with her grinding run. She needs a better draw and more pace.
Proponents and opponents of dirt and synthetic surfaces have hardened, uncompromising attitudes – much like those on the extremes of our national political discourse. However, the honest truths that seem self-evident are:
A) Dirt produces the truest racing results from the perspective of most horseplayers and the more than a century of Thoroughbred breeding in this country.
B) Many horses with genuine dirt prowess, but who have trained and legged up competitively on synthetic surfaces, tend to run lights-out going artificial to real.
Perhaps the bold, new racetrack of the future has a legitimate synthetic training facility and a hyper-modern dirt course for actual racing.
On the subject of Rachel:I'm as big a fan of horse racing as there is, but I loved every minute of Rachel being defeated on Sunday. As a true fan of the sport, you have to appreciate a horse like Persistently, with the classic connections of McGaughey/Phipps, taking down Rachel at the Spa. Personally, I find it hard to embrace Rachel for a number of reasons: 1) Her connections are not exactly the most likable group of people (see Assmussen's countless drug positive suspensions) 2) In my opinion, it was robbery that Zenyatta did not win HOY last year (and I'm from NJ, not the west coast). 3) I find it fitting that her connections spent the entire first part of the year finding soft spots to run in, and when they finally enter her against G1 competition, she loses to a filly running in her first stakes race ever. I respect that some people are fans of Rachel Alexandra, just like I am a fan of the Yankees. However, I don't agree with the idea that any fan of horse racing should be a fan of Rachel Alexandra.
