By Stephen Alicknovic
I am a Rachel Alexandra fan, and have been from the beginning. It’s safe to say she is probably not the same horse as she was last year.
She was able to put away Life At Ten with relative ease running through moderate fractions in the Personal Ensign, but was unable to sustain her momentum to the wire to hold off the late rally of Persistently. She was as game as could be in defeat. The mile-and-a-quarter is a bit too far for Rachel Alexandra at this point in time.
She is still a champion and has accomplished things that no other 3-year-old filly in the history of thoroughbred racing has. It will be a very long time before we see anything like what we saw last year. She was just simply dominant on all levels.
As for the Zenyatta Vs. Rachel Alexandra nonsense, hopefully people will come to their senses and take each horse for what they are. I think it’s actually a good thing these two will never meet, and likely never will. There is nothing to prove in a race between them anyway.
The Horse of The Year debate is old and tiresome. Rachel Alexandra deserved to be crowned the 2009 Horse of The Year, however I thought both Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra should have in the very least shared the title. The powers that be nixed this idea.
We know what type of horse Zenyatta is. We know what type of horse Rachel Alexandra is. They are both champions.
I love Zenyatta and think she is one of the very best thoroughbreds I have ever watched. She is simply brilliant. She has her eyes set on back-to-back Breeders’ Cup Classic wins, and from everything I have seen so far this year, her chances continue to improve by the day she will have every opportunity to win it again.
In the eyes of some, Zenyatta might have been robbed of Horse of The Year last year, but she holds the trump card this year for that top honor. It’s her’s for the taking.
I hope Rachel Alexandra recovers nicely from these last two hard races, and has something big left for the Breeders’ Cup Ladies Classic, or whatever race they decide she will run in.
I don’t think there would be anything finer than seeing both of these two wonderful champions go out winners in this year’s Breeders’ Cup.
