The Cigarilla

When five horses enter the gate for the Apple Blossom Invitational Handicap today at Oaklawn, none of them will be named Rachel Alexandra, and therefor the race will be run for a purse of 500.000$, rather than the proposed 5 million. Though the costliest part of Oaklawn's questionable stunt* will go down as a historical footnote, the race will still be run over 9 furlongs, almost a week after the originally given date, and the word 'Handicap' was obviously left in the title just for a chuckle. The "Invitational" part is to be taken literally though: it pretty much is an open invitation for Zenyatta to hit the magical 16 consecutive wins at minimal risk.

No race is ever won before the result is final, but Zenyatta will definitely not be 'beaten' by any of her opponents. Fate and Team Zenyatta themselves are the only ones who can cause the great mare to lose in this race.

As for the 5-million proposal: a historical footnote it may be, but an isolated oddity it certainly isn't. This year's Apple Blossom marks the current nadir of a trend that spans several decades and may most aptly be called "the horseman's condition book". The trend is characterized by an ever-increasing tendency to write stakes books and assigning weights according to the interests of influential – or in some cases merely very vocal - owners, trainers and breeders rather than the interests of fans, bettors or the sport, let alone the principles of sportsmanship.
The late Robert Frankel elevated badgering racing secretaries into an art form back when he had superstars like Ghostzapper and Empire Maker in his stable. Who could forget the time when he let it be known that his reigning HotY Ghostzapper would start in, of all races, the Oaklawn Handicap – but only if "the greatest racehorse in 20 years" (according to one R. Frankel) was assigned no more than 121 pounds. 2005 Oaklawn sent Bobby back to NYRA, where he always found an open ear. 2010 Oaklawn assigns 123 to Zenyatta - a virtual walkover. As if that wasn't enough, never before has the conditions sheet for a major race been mutilated so heavily to accommodate the interests of one or more specific horses.

Going forward from here, connections of superstar horses know that they can get the purse, date, distance and conditions of even major fixtures changed at short notice (a side issue of course, but should a race that has all but one of the basic conditions changed after publication of the Graded Stakes Schedule not be stripped of its grade?). Inclusion criteria for this new class of platinum customer equine star seem to be based on hype, which is a problem for a sport known to overhype horses on a regular basis.

So why is this post headlined "The Cigarilla"? Simple: as great a feat as Zenyatta's is, when Cigar tied Citation's winning streak in 1996, he did so beating nine opponents, giving 12 pounds to Unbridled's Song, 14 to Honour and Glory, 12 to Dramatic Gold. Zenyatta will give 3 pounds to War Echo and Just Jenda, and give new meaning to the old Soccer saying that "a tie is often a moral victory for one side".

Trivia Corner: there actually was a racehorse called Cigarilla once, a 1979 daughter of Banderilla (by Native Dancer).

* Several good reasons to call the proposal questionable can be found in this post on the great, recently revived (well, more or less) Thoroughbred Blog.

Result:
(section added April 10; 1025 CET, 0425 EST)

No surprises here. The race was written for Zenyatta, and she effortlessly won it going away. That's it in showbiz news, now on to horse racing.

Oaklawn Dodged a Bullet

There could be some debate about whether or not the connections of Rachel Alexandra must be considered the big losers of last Saturday. However, there can be no question about who the big winner of Monday was: Charlie Cella, the mastermind of Oaklawn Park.

And he is a mastermind indeed. During the decades of his ownership, the Arkansas track has fared remarkably well from both a sporting and a financial standpoint. It is a racino, but one of the few which are actually a racetrack with a casino, rather than the more common alternative of "a casino with lots of horses in the backyard".

Cella has never been afraid of going his own way, as when OP continually got snubbed by the AGSC. To their credit, the committee finally gets the relative strength of the Ark, Illinois and Ohio Derbies right this year, but Oaklawn still continues its policy not to mention the grades of their stakes races in their condition books or stakes schedule.

So it wasn't a huge surprise to see Charlie tackle the Rachel v Zenyatta question on everybody's mind head-on. Personally, I don't like Oaklawn's 5-million-Invitational proposal at all, but that's a topic for another post. More importantly, I'm sure that as of Saturday evening, nobody liked the proposal less than Charlie and the good folks at Oaklawn. After all, nothing in the revised conditions sheet demands that Rachel or Zenyatta turn up for the race with their respective winning streaks intact.

The fact is: after Rachel's hapless performance in an ungraded stakes race, the great duel that we've been waiting for has (at least temporarily) lost a lot of its appeal. What Oaklawn would end up with isn't worth half of the 5-million-tag.

Sure, it was a loss in a race off a long layoff, a race in which Rachel's camp employed a pretty overconfident race strategy. Sure, racing fans would still be excited about the matchup. What's more, I don't think it would necessarily be a foregone conclusion. But as for the mainstream appeal ... well, mainstream might not be the right word to describe ESPN News or Fox Sports Southwest.

The other fact is: Oaklawn has a wonderful storyline at the original purse, as long as Zenyata shows up. For 500.000$, Oaklawn is the place where Zenyatta can tie Citation and Cigar for 16 consecutive wins. (Even though the exact nature of the "record" is a bit cheesy; "modern day consecutive wins on major or mid-major racetracks", maybe? Oaklawn tries it with "consecutive unrestricted victories", but personally I'd say that "F&M" is quite a restriction. Regardless, it would be a great feat).
Tying Citation and Cigar should be enough to have the eyes and minds of racing fans focussed on Hot Springs on April 9. Rachel Alexandra would add another dimension, but basically the race would attract almost the same public attention with or without Rachel, the only difference being the 4.5 million more that Oaklawn would have to spend for the privilege.

As for the fans: we were robbed of the great duel that should have happened. But that was last November, not so much on Monday. Time will tell if there will be another chance to see a peak-form Rachel race against a peak-form Zenyatta. Time has told racing often enough that you shouldn't let such opportunities slip when they're there.

BC Thoughts - Early Edition

Whatever you think of Jess Jackson’s decision not to run Rachel Alexandra in this year’s Breeders Cup, or of his tirade against synthetic surfaces (my take: there is a distinct smell of "sore loserism" lingering in the air), the one thing we should agree upon is that his argumentation was disingenuous.

Those types of "plastic" are too different from each other? “Man interfering with nature”? You might wanna take a closer look on that Churchill surface, it’s not your average mid-Kentucky soil either, nor is it identical to the surfaces at Gulfstream or Belmont. Mr Jackson, after all, has become a billionaire “interfering with nature”, as in artificially creating vineyards, where he grows genetically modified grapes that have little more to do with their ancient ancestors than a Tapeta track has with the sand at Del Mar beach.

I’d like to see the BC as an event as close to an American Open Championship as possible, but I'll just skip that argument for now. Interesting takes in support of Jackson’s decision can be found on The Aspiring Horseplayer and Foolish Pleasure blogs. I still disagree, for reasons stated there, but even before reading those I felt far less passionate about the topic than, say, the prospect of Rachel following up her Oaks romp with another one in the Acorn. This is largely because, for all we know, a RA v Zenyatta duel would have only been likely if both had chosen the Distaff, which would have opened up a whole new can of worms.

The self-proclaimed “World Championships” (never mind the title) have recently revamped their Win & You’re In list for the third time in three years, and in the process created a hodge-podge of American and Overseas races that are unlikely to have promotional value and are hard to follow even for the most dedicated fans. If I understand their website correctly, most of the added International races won’t even be broadcast in America. It’s also not quite clear why we need BC W&YI’s at all. Unless you simultaneously limit the BC to a maximum of 10 runners per race, its just an unneccessarily complicated way to determine about half the field (less in some cases).

The most interesting aspect is hidden in the details: not a single one of the races on Dubai World Cup Day will carry W&YI status. Is there any reason other than animosity towards the world’s other “Thoroughbred World Championship”? I don’t think so.

A second line of criticism has focused on the BC’s ignorance of the labels assigned by the American Graded Stakes Committee. True, some of the new W&YI races are entirely ungraded and the grades obviously didn’t play any major role in determining the races, but really, the AGSC’s work deserves to be ignored. Its pattern system is entirely useless to identify the most important races, unless you think that the Prioress, Kings Bishop and Santa Maria really are more prestigious than the Suburban or Oaklawn Hcps, that the Ark Derby and Lexington Stakes are on the same level, or that there really are no less than 115 races in the US which consistently attract several runners of the highest caliber.

Plus, increased incentive even for non-graded niche stakes, especially in the Turf Sprint and Marathon categories, is a good opportunity for all those upstart racinos to establish meaningful races without simultaneously watering down the quality of already established stakes elsewhere.

Quarters to Square the Rectangle (And Other Observations)

I was gonna write a piece yesterday about the slightly odd direction the Zenyatta v Rachel Alexandra match debate has taken, but EquiSpace has pretty much said all I wanted say already, kudos!

I would only add that I don’t quite understand why a Belmont-winning RA would be the “challenger” against Zenyatta at all. If she won the “Test of Champions”, the filly would have an Oaks triumph and two Triple Crown wins under her belt. Zenyatta has shown all the potential in the world (or at least the artificially surfaced world), but still hasn’t beaten anyone better than Ginger Punch, especially considering she met Music Note and Cocoa Beach on a tilted playing field. In my understanding of "challenging" a Champion, the one in the challenging position would be Zenyatta. Without the Belmont, I’d regard it a tie, so they may meet each other somewhere half way, like Prairie Meadows (I’m not seriously proposing this, I just desperately needed a segue).


Prairie Madness

When I hear “Racing in Iowa”, the first thing I think about is the tradition-rich Iowa Fairs harness circuit, then comes the tradition of Thoroughbred racing in the Midwest (actually, the first thing to come to mind would be amateur stock car racing, but that’s besides the point).

The "non-profit" Prairie Meadows Racino seems to think otherwise. They plan to shift the focus of their product towards Quarter Horse racing, dropping the equivalent of 10 Thoroughbred racedays in the process, and quit racing Standardbreds altogether.

I feel a bit odd criticizing the switch because I don’t really dislike the result, what bugs me is the method applied, and the logic that I suspect is behind it.

Less thoroughbred racing at PrM is good for the sport (although not necessarily for racing in Iowa), and I guess (really guess, my harness racing knowledge is extremely limited) that Iowa Fair racing is best helped by reverting those racedays to Iowa fairgrounds. Still, this reasoning was obviously not what led Prairie Meadows to propose the change.

What got this non-profit organization to do it then? Well, first of all the fact that non-profit is a clear-cut misnomer, since the racino does make profit for its state and its perpendicularly angled host county. Despite lower handle, the considerably lower cost of QH racing makes it more profitable for the track. So profitable obviously, that they will even change their race dates to Thursday through Sunday, even though their Monday and Tuesday events currently attract more than three times the handle (but probably not enough to outweigh the lure of having a lead-in on the most profitable casino days).

So in essence, what the good folks at Prairie Meadows mean by “promoting racing in Iowa” is to drop the state’s most tradition-rich mode of racing, demote the most popular mode on their track, and concentrate on a mode of racing that has hardly any heritage in Iowa, and has so far failed to gain substantial public interest.

"Non-Profit" never sounded so hollow before. Seems like Iowa is starting to cut off the parasite.

Great Oaks to Little Acorns Spells Missed Opportunity for Racing

"Great oaks from little acorns grow" is the phrase the Acorn Stakes have been named after, a reference to the race's status as a prep for the CCA Oaks, which were traditionally considered the real Oaks race of America. According to an article by Paul Moran, that's the road that yesterday's phenomenal Kentucky Oaks victress Rachel Alexandra will take. The race's name thus takes on a different but very symbolic meaning; Rachel Alexandra will go from Oaks glory to a race in which she can't win anything but money.

From there her connections will likely take the route Moran has outlined in an earlier article. They might start her in the Mother Goose, CCA Oaks and Alabama, then run a BC prep against older fillies, then the BC Distaff, where if everything goes right (and it so often doesn't) we may just see a duel against Zenyatta, last year's pampered filly sensation. "What is to be gained, actually, by running her against males?", Moran asks. How about public interest, in and outside the shrinking pond of racing enthusiasts?

Racing insiders and fans frequently bemoan the fact that the mainstream media only focuses on the negative stories that racing creates, but this case shows one aspect that they continue to ignore: racing doesn't produce many positive stories, even when it could.

Realistically, Rachel Alexandra will not always have such tremendous form, such a favorable trip or such favorable conditions, but under any conditions she is superior enough to all other fillies on the East Coast to discourage any meaningful opposition. Unless something goes wrong (a possibility that always exists) one of the greatest fillies in decades will cruise home in the Acorn, then beat virtually no opposition in the Mother Goose, CCA, Alabama and her BC prep.

Do you think any major newspaper will care, or that any TV station would spend hours of Saturday afternoon broadcasting on races about as engaging as "John Kerry Comedy Hour" when they have dozens of other sporting events with more appeal to choose from? You know why that Seabiscuit v War Admiral match race captured the nation? It's because people wondered who would actually win! I doubt we would have seen a movie about it had Seabiscuit run some mid-level claimer into the ground that afternoon at Pimlico. The lure of great sporting events is the lure of a great challenge, not the repeated thrashing of your overmatched opposition, no matter how huge a feat it may be in its own right.

Face it, if Rachel Alexandra wins the schedule outlined above by an average of eight lenghts, the mainstream media won't care. That is unless she gets injured somewhere along the way, in which case she might be a negative story. In both cases, racing loses. Is it really so much asked that a filly that has proven vastly superior to her crop at least tries the Belmont instead of the Acorn and Mother Goose?

"We still don’t know how good she is", trainer Hal Wiggins says. One thing is for certain: they won't find out in the Acorn.

See You in Baltimore, Rachel!

The morning after Rachel Alexandra pulled off what might be the most impressive Kentucky Oaks win in history, the racing world is glowing in appraisal, with Railbird going so far as to compare the feat to the great Regret's of 1915.

Such comparison, however, misses the big difference. Regret won the Derby, Rachel Alexandra took off after a textbook trip to stun an Oaks crop we already knew she was superior to, although few had expected her to be that overwhelming. Others have pointed out that it would likely be unfair to criticize her connections for not running her in the Derby, but they won't have any excuse from here on. If wherever her career takes her next is anything but a Triple Crown race, the filly might be peerless among her sex, but her connections will have denied her a chance to show how great she really is. This filly can win against any opponent and should be campaigned that way.

In a related story, kudos again to last year's Eclipse voters. You decided against hyped supertalent Zenyatta for HOTY, figuring she really hasn't proven herself to be a Champion, despite her connections having every chance to do so. This weekend should have silenced your critics. True Champions don't hide from an opposition several levels below their class just because the track isn't absolutely perfect for them. Sorry, but if you don't have enough confidence in your horse to overcome a slightly off track against such opposition, I'm guessing we'll see another season of statistical stardom and all-female romps out of a horse that could have the talent to become an American Zarkava and help the sport overcome some of those stupid prejudices about fillies running against colts.