ARCADIA, Calif. -- When we saw Mikey and Zenyatta win the Breeders' Cup Classic, coming back through the crowd and the energy and the excitement, it was with mixed emotions. I'll have to admit that Saturday was a little disappointing for me personally, but when we got back in the room Alex Solis and I started discussing it a little bit and we were like, you know, that was really cool, to be there, to be a part of that. It was one of those If I didn't win I'm glad they did kind of things.
For me, Saturday could have been a really, really good day. It was a good day anyway, but I got beat in the Sprint by not even a head - maybe half a head. I got two seconds in the Juvenile and the Mile with Lookin At Lucky and Courageous Cat, a third in the Dirt Mile with Midshipman, and two fourths in the Turf Sprint and Sprint with Delta Storm and Gayego. Of all my horses, pretty much the only one that ran way back was Codoy in the Juvenile Turf. So it was a little bit of a letdown because all my horses ran so good, but we just couldn't get to the winner's circle.
Even in the Classic, I got out at like the five sixteenths pole and at the quarter pole Colonel John just never kicked in. I asked him to run and he kind of came back in my face a little bit, which leaves you scratching your head because he's run great races on all the surfaces and I guess he just wasn't feeling up to it that day.
But like I said, when me and Alex were talking about it back in the room, we remarked upon how nice it is for our industry to have a horse like Zenyatta who actually has the crowd following her. It's great for the sport and she was great Saturday - to be 13 for 13 and show up at the Breeders' Cup to face the best that the males had to offer in the Championship race; it's supposed to be the best of the best and for her to beat them that day was just amazing. It was awesome to see her remain undefeated and become a part of history as the first filly or mare to ever do something like that.
Everybody will throw their two cents in about who should be Horse of the Year and my belief is that if she hadn't won the Classic, the other filly, Rachel Alexandra, would have gotten it. But Zenyatta showed up on Championship day in the biggest race we have against the toughest field we're supposed to have all year long. It was tougher than the field Rachel beat in the Woodward against older males, it was tougher than the races with 3-year-olds alone, and this mare showed up.
There was no reason for Rachel not to show up; her connections decided not to run her. If the Breeders' Cup was held wherever else, Zenyatta would have had to go there and accomplish exactly what she had to do here. The thing is, it's almost a shame because if they had been separated a year, say Rachel ran in 2008 and Zenyatta ran in 2009, they both would have brought home Horse of the Year. But the way they both went out of their division and did what hadn't been done for a long time in the same season just happened. But you have to split hairs somewhere and the horse that showed up at the championship race at the end of a flawless season should get top honors. That's where I stand.
Today was quieter at Santa Anita. It was quiet for me because I rode so many good horses yesterday and the day before and now things were back to normal. The crowd size was quite a bit smaller than Breeders' Cup days, of course, but there were more people out there than I'd seen for most of the meet and we still had a decent crowd. It was closing day and there was still a little bit of Zenyatta buzz left in the air, and it was nice to feel that way.
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