The Matchmaker

Zenyatta wins Horse of the Year

It is an easy season based on three things.  Zenyatta showed up to contest the Championship race did and race stayed in the barn, not even working until the vote has to be in [proposed Feb start before working]

Second, when Rachel beat older horses in the Woodward, she was getting 8 pounds from the second place finisher she beat by a head, Macho Again.

Third, both Zenyatta and Rachel ran at Oaklawn Park, Rachel ran twice; Zenyatta once.  Beyers thought Zenyatta was the most impressive, despite the fact that he is now total in Rachel's camp.  Rachel achieved a Beyers of 100 and 101 and Zenyatta got a 104.

Game, Set, Match

Zenyatta ran a monster today.  A slow pace was thought to be the achilles heel of Zenyatta, but on Oct 10, the pace was slow and she just exploded to take the lead and immediately shut it down to coast to victory.  One heck of a nice filly.  Mike Smith said that she decided to shut it down, because she had done enough.  Jockeys say a lot of things, but he was clearly emotional.  She loves Santa Anita so the Breeders' Cup is in for something special.

A rule proposed by the New York State Racing and Wagering Board to make owners, trainers and veterinarians more accountable for their horses’ medical treatment and health has been opposed by nearly every constituency in horse racing.

The rule, which would require owners, trainers and veterinarians to produce on demand complete medical records for the 45 days before a horse raced in New York, was criticized by national and New York horse groups in responses to the Racing and Wagering Board. They said it required too much paperwork and placed too onerous a responsibility on owners, whom they characterize as largely absentee.

...from the NY Times

Obvious, any opposition is based upon keeping their training secrets or cheating out of the public eye.  Racing sucks

October 9, 2009

HOY: Rachel Versus Summer Bird
As of now, it's dead even.  Rachel is a great filly and Summer Bird is a vastly improved colt from when he met Rachel in the slop.

She needed every one of the eight pounds she was conceding to barely beating a fast closing Macho Again.  She did set very fast fractions though in that race and deserved to be tiring badly, but she did more than anyone else. 

If we start comparing one against the other we might also realize that Summer Bird destroyed Macho Again on a surface [sloppy] he loves today. 

It is common in Europe for fillies to use the weight they are given to beat the highest class of colts, but unusual in North America for them to be given the chance, hence our infatuation with the thought of a really high-class filly being given a chance to beat the colts.  She has and has gained much prominence, but giving her the HOY award is far too premature.

If Rachel's connections refuse to go west and compete in a race designed to be filled with horses competing for possible Eclipse and HOY awards.  And Summer Bird wins the Classic or beaten by a nose of two, it's Summer Bird's award to me, especially since it is on a different surface.

After all, they gave the award to Curlin and he couldn't do synthetic nearly as well as dirt. 

We must also remember that Summer Bird's race in the Kentucky Derby was sneaky good and I did not recognize it but my good friend Tim Rosnau spotted it immediately.....and I was not until the last two starts of Summer Bird on him as HOY. 

This Storm Cat colt out the the 1.7 million earner Fleet Indian is her first foal.  He sold for a touch over $2 million.

I do not believe that the produce of any mare should sell for over $1 million if none of her foals have yet made it to the races, let alone $2 million. 

I understand that Storm Cat is and has been for a very long time a top sire, but the mating that produced Storm N' Indian has also not yet been successfully tried.  So we have a colt by an untested mating out of a mare's first foal. 

To me, a great believer in the role of the GSV as an identifier of Genetic Strength, it might helpful to see if the GSV generated by the mating justifies the optimism the buyer had for the colt.

The GSV of the Storm Cat half of the pedigree is 73.88.  However, the GSV of the Fleet Indian half of the pedigree is only 66.96, giving the colt a GSV of 70.17.  This score is high, but not high for a stallion such as Storm Cat.  Storm Cat foals average a GSV of 74.02.  The UP score is a -3.85.

It seems quite simple that the buyer paid a little over $2 million because the dam was a Champion and earned over $1.7 million.  Confusing a superb race record with the ability to produce top class colts in matings that have never been tried before is ALMOST always a BIG mistake.