Breeders Cup 2009 AD

[Seabiscuit]

Well the Breeders Cup days (now run over 2 days) are drawing near and these are surely the greatest days of racing on the planet run over the great synthetic track at Santa Anita

Last I read Rachel Alexandra ain't going which is a shame. These days to be a true champ in USA racing I think you need to handle synthetics. It will be for best for her to turn up and take on the likes of Zenyatta. Otherwise I will have to declare Zenyatta the best filly/mare in the world on my official ratings

[imaufo]

Yes they said that Rachael wont be there but that was a pretty solid win of hers the other day and it would be good for racing if they can get her to go.

They said its been a long time since a filly won that race she won last week?

[Seabiscuit]

Yes Rachel has won a few races rarely won by fillies and is pretty good but if she is too scared to run in the BC then that is a black mark against her name

[Seabiscuit]

Well Zenyatta wins and Rachel nowhere to be seen

Zenyatta must be horse of the year now and Rachel is a nothing

[imaufo]

Nice horse that Zenyatta.

If you go back in her pedigree you will find a bit of Native Dancer.

I think she looks a lot like him and has a similar racing style.

zenyatta cossed with deep impact = worlds best horse.



Native Dancer above and Zenyatta below.






Pik of Ruffian below ( from a Native Dancer mare)





Following his loss at Churchill Downs, Native Dancer quickly reestablished himself as one of the best horses in America. He won the Preakness Stakes, the Belmont Stakes, and the Travers Stakes, a feat accomplished until then only by Duke of Magenta, Man o' War, and Whirlaway, and by only two other horses since. Native Dancer never lost again that season and was named Champion Three Year Old Colt.

In 1954 Native Dancer won all three races he entered and was scheduled to be shipped to France to compete in the prestigious Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. However, he had to be retired as a result of a recurring foot injury with a record of 21 wins out of 22 lifetime races. Voted the Eclipse Award for Horse of the Year for 1954, he appeared on the May 31 cover of Time magazine.



A dark bay, almost coal black filly, nearly 17 hands, Ruffian was foaled at Claiborne Farm, near Paris, Kentucky. She was bred by Stuart S. Janney, Jr. and Barbara Phipps Janney, owners of Locust Hill Farm in Glyndon, Maryland. Ruffian was sired by the Phipps family's Bold Ruler stallion, Reviewer, and out of the Native Dancer mare Shenanigans. As a yearling and 2-year old, Ruffian was trained by Frank Y. Whiteley, Jr..[citation needed]

She earned the nickname "Queen of the Fillies" after being voted the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Two-Year-Old Filly in 1974 and winning the Filly Triple Crown (now called the Triple Tiara) in 1975. Lucien Laurin, Secretariat's trainer, said this quote to the press "As God as my witness, she may even be better than Secretariat." Ruffian was undefeated in her first ten races, covering distances from 5.5 furlongs (1.1 km) to 1.5 miles (2.4 km) with an average winning margin of 8 1/3 lengths. She won her maiden race in record time and by 15 lengths. She was on lead at every point of call in every race she ever ran. She set a new stakes record in each of the eight stakes races which she won. She had also equaled two track records. If she didn't set track or stakes record, she equaled them. Ruffian had won the Sorority Stakes (setting a new stakes record) on a freshly popped splint, which, although not a serious injury, but painful, was enough to take the edge off a horse.[citation needed]

[edit] Final race and death
Ruffian's eleventh race was run at Belmont Park on July 6, 1975. It was a match race between Ruffian and that year's Kentucky Derby winner, Foolish Pleasure. The two horses shared the same jockey, Jacinto Vasquez. Vasquez chose to ride Ruffian in the match race, believing her to be the better of the two horses; Braulio Baeza rode Foolish Pleasure. The "equine battle of the sexes" was heavily anticipated and attended by more than 50,000 spectators, with an estimated television audience of 18 million.[citation needed]

The first quarter-mile (402 m) was run in a blazing 22 1/5 seconds, with Ruffian ahead by a nose. Little more than 1 furlong (201 m) later, Ruffian was in front by half a length when both sesamoid bones in her right foreleg snapped.[1] Vasquez tried to pull her up, but the filly wouldn't stop. "She went on running, pulverizing her sesamoids, ripping the skin of her fetlock as the bones burst through, driving the open wound into the sting sand of the Belmont track, tearing her ligaments, until her hoof was flopping uselessly, bent up like the tip of a ski."[2]

She was immediately attended to by a team of four veterinarians and an orthopedic surgeon, and underwent an emergency operation lasting three hours. Tragically, when the anesthesia wore off after the surgery, she thrashed about wildly on the floor of a padded recovery stall as if still running in the race. Despite the efforts of numerous attendants, she began spinning in circles on the floor. As she flailed about with her legs, she repeatedly knocked the heavy plaster cast against her own elbow until the elbow, too, was smashed to bits.[2] The cast slipped, and as it became dislodged it ripped open her foreleg all over again, undoing the surgery. The medical team, knowing that she would probably not survive more extensive surgery for the repair of her leg and elbow, euthanized her shortly after.




Zenyatta (foaled April 1, 2004 in Kentucky) is an American Champion Thoroughbred racehorse. She is an unbeaten 14 for 14. Zenyatta has defeated Grade I or Group 1 winners Gio Ponti, Twice Over, 2009 Belmont Stakes winner Summer Bird, Colonel John, Richard's Kid, 2009 Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird, Rip Van Winkle, Einstein, Ginger Punch, Hystericalady, Life Is Sweet, Tough Tiz's Sis, Romance Is Diane, Double Trouble, Sealy Hill, Cocoa Beach, Santa Teresita, Carriage Trail, and Music Note. She has won fourteen races from as many starts, twelve of these being Graded stakes races including eight Grade I events. [1] She is one of only a few on a List of Undefeated horses in American racing history, which include the immortal Colin and the Super Filly Personal Ensign.

She began her four-year-old season by winning the Grade 2 El Encino Stakes at Santa Anita. In her next outing she won her first Grade 1, the Apple Blossom Handicap at Oaklawn Park on 5 April. Returning to Hollywood Park she then won the Milady Handicap (Gr 2) in May and the Vanity Handicap (Gr 1) in July.

In the Clement L. Hirsch (Gr 2) win at Del Mar on 2 August, Zenyatta set a new track record of 1:41.48 for 8.5 furlongs on the new polytrack. She then won the Lady's Secret Stakes (Gr 1) at Santa Anita and in that race Zenyatta ran each quarter faster than the one before. Her splits were :24 4/5, :23 4/5, :23 1/5, :22 3/5, and a final sixteenth in :06 flat.

On her final outing of 2008, she was sent off as the 1-2 favorite for the Breeders' Cup Ladies' Classic (Gr 1) at Santa Anita, Zenyatta traveled at the back of the pack until the final turn, where she made a breath-taking move to capture the lead with 200 yards to go. She posted a 1 1/2 length victory over second place finisher Cocoa Beach in a time of 1:46.85. After Curlin's defeat in the Breeders' Cup Classic, the filly was a strong contender for Horse of the Year. She was awarded the Eclipse Award as American Champion Older Female Horse for 2008.

On 15 January 2009 it was announced that Zenyatta had won the NTRA "Moment of the Year" for 2008.

[edit] 2009 Season
On 23 May, Zenyatta made her much anticipated reappearance winning the Milady Handicap (Gr 2) at Hollywood Park, carrying 126 pounds. In this race she defeated her highly-touted Grade I-winning stablemate, Life Is Sweet. On her next outing on 27 June, she won the Vanity Handicap at Hollywood Park for the second straight year. She carried 129 pounds, spotting her rivals 13 to 18 pounds, and became the first horse to win under such a weight assignment since 1977. In 2008, she won it under 126 pounds.

Her next start was her second Clement L. Hirsch Handicap (now a Gr 1) on 9 August at Del Mar. Coming from last, she was forced to circle the entire field six wide behind a slow pace. She won by a head, although the media have frequently incorrectly set the final margin as a nose. On 10 October, she won her second Lady's Secret in her same come from behind fashion.

On 28 October it was announced that she would take on the colts in the Breeders' Cup Classic at Santa Anita Park. No filly or mare had ever won the Classic since its inception in 1984.

On 7 November, Zenyatta became the first female to win the Breeders' Cup Classic and the first horse ever to win two different Breeders' Cup races, improving her winning record to 14 of 14. Her official time was 2:00.62. In her previous outing, Zenyatta equalled the American record for consecutive victories by a filly or mare, held by Personal Ensign, one of the legends of the sport in the United States. Now she holds the record alone and, like Personal Ensign, may well now retire undefeated.

[imaufo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hv49V...eature=related



Zen-Cam

[imaufo]

No-one here is interested in your stupid sites. Please fuck off.