Runs like a girl: How Rachel, Zen, Proviso and others might be changing U.S. racing's gender bias

A thrilling 2009 racing season ended with a sharp debate among fans over whether 3-year-old filly Rachel Alexandra or 5-year-old mare Zenyatta -- who never faced each other during the season -- deserved to be named Horse of the Year.

That nod eventually went to Rachel at the Eclipse Awards. And since Zen's owners, Jerry and Ann Moss, decided to keep her in training instead of breeding her this spring, it looks as though we might get to see these two hook up early as April 9 in the Apple Blossom Handicap at Oaklawn Park. Hopefully both females will stay healthy all season, meet more than once, and the thrills of 2010 might rival those of '09.

But decades from now, when we look back on the campaigns staged by the connections of Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta in 2009, I wonder whether their seasons might be recognized as having a broader influence on the course of American racing.

That is, 2009 just might have been the year in which American thoroughbred trainers stopped being so scared of boys.

When breeder Dolphus Morrison sold Rachel Alexandra to Jess Jackson and company, shortly after her smashing win the Kentucky Oaks, Jackson and new trainer Steve Asmussen did something Morrison said he'd never do: Point the filly toward a race against colts. Morrison -- like many in the racing game -- believes that fillies and mares should only race against other females. Going up against males, so the thinking goes, is asking too much of a filly or mare, physically. But two weeks and a day after her record-setting margin in the Oaks, Rachel Alexandra most of the work on the front end and held on at the wire against Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird to beat colts and geldings in the Preakness Stakes, becoming the first filly to win that race since Nellie Morse in 1924.

Rachel, as any half-awake observer of horse racing knows, wasn't done facing boys after her historic Preakness score. She kicked around a short field of fillies in a boringly brilliant performance in the Mother Goose Stakes, then returned to the boys' club in the Haskell, running Belmont Stakes winner Summer Bird right off his feet to win by 6 1/2 lengths over a sloppy track at Monmouth. In September, Rachel recorded her third victory against males -- this time older horses -- by becoming the first female ever to win the Woodward Stakes at Saratoga.

Rachel Alexandra finished the year 8-for-8, three of those wins in Grade 1 races against males. And perhaps her season forced the hand of Zenyatta's connections -- the Mosses and trainer John Shirreffs. They opted to let their big, lifetime-unbeaten mare tackle males in the Breeders' Cup Classic at Santa Anita last November, not just because Zen "fit" in the race, but to make a lasting impression on one of the sport's biggest days in an effort to help the reigning Eclipse champion older female add Horse of the Year to her credentials.

Zenyatta won the Classic with powerful style, becoming the first female ever to win that race in 26 runnings. It was enough to more than cement her place in history; just not quite enough to beat out Rachel for Horse of the Year.

What has happened since? Well, nothing for either of these females, other than training toward their 2010 campaigns. But a lot for some other fillies and mares.

On Saturday at Santa Anita, the Juddmonte Farms' mare Proviso, trained by Bill Mott, "closed desperately in the final sixteenth" to become the first female ever to win the Grade 1 Frank E. Kilroe Mile Handicap. The British-bred mare nosed out Grade 1 winning Brazilian-bred Fluke, ridden by Joe Talamo, to score the historic win. Multiple G2-winner Battle of Hastings was third in a solid field of males that, on this day, got beat by a girl. (And a second female, Tuscan Evening, was entered in the race, but scratched by conditioner Jerry Hollendorfer after she drew the far outside post.)

And, on the same card, British-born mare St Trinians actually was sent off as the 3-1 favorite in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap, a race that had never been won by a female in its 72-year history. Make that 73 years, as St Trinians suffered a difficult trip and finished sixth; Misremembered won from a full field of 14. But the fact that a mare was the post-time favorite in a race never before won by a female suggests that bettors believe the girls can compete.

I was actually a bit surprised that Zenyatta wasn't in the "Big Cap" Saturday. It looked like a field she could beat, but instead she is pointed toward the Grade 1 Santa Margarita for fillies and mares this coming weekend. Maybe Shirreffs thought that going right back up against males after a four-month layoff was too much to ask. And in the end, Misremembered's winning time of 2:00.20 was faster than Zenyatta's victorious time over the same track and distance in November's Classic, so to win, Zen would really have needed to bring her A-game.

Flashing back to '09, Rachel and Zen weren't the only females to take on, and defeat, male horses in big races. Ventura defeated males in the Woodbine Mile-G1 in Canada on Sept. 20. And 3-year-old Evita Argentina beat nine boys to win the Grade 2 San Vicente Stakes a year ago in February.

It really shouldn't come as a shock to American fans that the best females can run and win among males at the highest levels of the game. In Europe and elsewhere, they do it all the time.

Many times champion turf mare Ouija Board during the earlier years of this 21st century defeated males in the Group 1 Prince of Wales in England, and the G1 Hong Kong Vase, as well. She placed or showed among the very best males in top races such as the Japan Cup (won by Deep Impact), Coronation Cup (Shirocco), Irish Champion Stakes (Dylan Thomas), and the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe (Bago). And when Ouija Board lost the Hong Kong Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Cup in 2006, the race was won not by a male, but by another female, South African-born Irridescence.

Then there's Australian champion Makybe Diva -- a racing female so good and so famed she became known simply as "The Mare." She defeated males at least a dozen times, including three consecutive renewals of the biggest race in Australia, the Group 1 Melbourne Cup, from 2003-05.

There's an adage in horse racing that an owner or trainer should keep himself among the best company, and his horse among the worst. And certainly taking on lesser challenges is the faster route to the winner's circle. But I have to believe that a big part of racing is the desire on the part of the connections to let your horse meet and beat the best competition it can.

Sure, most of the time fillies and mares will continue to run against other females. Just as a statebred race limits the competition, making it easier for a horse to win or place well and earn his keep, gender-restricted races are typically easier spots to run and win for a filly or mare, and every trainer and owner wants to win; needs to win in order to pay the bills.

Still, if the conditions fit and your filly is tight and right, there are boys to be beaten, everywhere from the maiden ranks all the way up to Grade 1 races. And I'd like to see more females given the chance.

At what price, greatness?

Phenomenal filly Rachel Alexandra, devastating winner of the 2009 Kentucky Oaks, has been sold to Jess Jackson's Stonestreet Stable for an undisclosed sum, with the racing industry buzzing that she's being pointed toward facing colts in the May 16 Preakness or maybe the Belmont Stakes in June.

And it leaves me me to wonder: Is this the ultimate proof of the adage that every man has his price?

Yes, racehorses are bought and sold every day. And just as cream rises to the top, the most exceptional horses -- particularly when originally owned by comparatively modest connections -- tend to find their way up the financial ranks into wealthier stables.

Saturday's Kentucky Derby was a prime example. Surprise 50-1 winner Mine That Bird had been a $9,500 Keeneland yearling. But when the gelding from Belmont-winner Birdstone's first crop established himself as a talented 2-year-old by winning three straight blacktype races at Woodbine -- including the Grade 3 Grey Stakes, securing a Canadian 2-year-old championship -- he was sold privately. Mine That Bird in barely a year had become a $400,000 horse bound for the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, dealt away by Dominion Bloodstock, D. Ball and HGHR Inc. to Double Eagle Ranch (Mark Allen) and Buena Suerte Equine (Dr. Leonard P. Blach); Allen being flush with cash from the $30 million sale of his family's oil field services company.

Jess Jackson of course has been down this road before. When Curlin, a $57,000 yearling, looked every bit the freak in breaking his maiden for Midnight Cry Stable as a 3-year-old at Gulfstream Park in February 2007, an 80 percent interest was sold to a team of Jackson (founder of Kendall-Jackson Wines), Satish Sanan's Padua Stables, and San Francisco investment banker George Bolton. Their price for four-fifths of a horse: $3.5 million. Their reward: The bulk of $10,501,800 in earnings and four U.S. championships, including back-to-back Horse of the Year titles.

But this one is different. This one is Rachel Alexandra.

It isn't just that she's won seven of 10 races in her young career, including a trio of Grade 2 events and the recent G1 Oaks by a seemingly effortless 20-ish lengths, earning more than $958,000 already for L & M Partners -- Dolphus Morrison and minority stakeholder Michael Lauffer.

It goes beyond the fact that the daughter of Medaglia D'Oro would have to be considered about a 1-to-5 shot for Eclipse Champion 3-year-old filly. And that if dollar signs, not thrills and glory, are the primary motivator, she would -- barring catastrophe (racing or reproductively) -- make millions more for Morrison and Lauffer on the track and for years to come with her foals at the sales.

It's about sentiment. And loyalty. And strength of convictions.

Rachel Alexandra wasn't bought by Morrison at any sale or at any price. He was the filly's breeder, who also bred her dam, Fair Grounds stakes winner Lotta Kim (Roar-Kim's Blues, by Cure the Blues), and Lotta Kim's blacktype-winning half-siblings Lotta Rhythm (by Rhythm) and High Blues (High Yield). This filly is the ultimate dream for a smaller breeder; the Grade 1-caliber culmination of a decade-or-more process that began with a four-win, non-blacktype runner in Kim's Blues who proved to be a heck of a producer.

But Morrison took the sentiment a step further with this filly. He named her Rachel Alexandra -- after his granddaughter. At what price does one sell outright his grandchild's namesake?

When the time to race came, Morrison turned the filly over to his longtime trainer, Hal Wiggins. The two have worked with one another since Morrison transitioned from racing Quarter Horses into the thoroughbred world some two decades ago. And they've had their very good days, including eight stakes wins by the Lost Code mare Morris Code, bought as a yearling by Wiggins as agent for Morrison, a runner who earned the duo nearly three quarters of a million dollars.

How sick must Hal Wiggins be right now? He just won the biggest race of his life in the Kentucky Oaks; his first-ever Grade 1. And in less than a week, the filly that took him there -- the best horse he ever conditioned, who might have brought him a Breeders' Cup, perhaps an Eclipse -- is sold and led away from his string to a barn where they muck the stalls of graded stakes horses every day.

"My wife was hurt, because she knew it was hurting me," Wiggins told The Blood-Horse Thursday. "I talked to her this morning, and I told her the sun was going to rise just like it does every morning. Time does a whole lot no matter what it is, and we have a lot to be thankful for, so we keep thinking about that."

How many boxes of Band-Aids is that broken heart gonna take?

Morrison, a steel company president away from the track, did sell Lauffer an interest in Rachel Alexandra last fall. But he chose to maintain majority ownership and retain principal decision-making power over campaigning her. And that's where strength of convictions come in.

Trackside and nationwide, wise guys say Rachel Alexandra could've won the Derby. Considering a 50-1 shot that nobody saw coming arose to claim the Roses, in a pretty average Derby time, it's certainly possible. But Morrison believed she didn't belong in that race, for a number of reasons.

"I thought it was dumb to come right behind Eight Belles with something that possibly could cause that kind of problem," Morrison told The Blood-Horse, though he praised that ill-fated filly's trainer, Larry Jones, for taking the Derby trail with Eight Belles in light of likewise having a favorite in the Oaks, eventual winner Proud Spell.

Morrison also cited the undeniable risks the Derby presents to any contestant -- intact, gelded or female.

"I just don't like the idea of 20 horses clang-banging her and knocking each other's brains out in that first 200 or 300 yards trying to get to that first turn," he continued in the Blood-Horse interview.

But Morrison's opposition to running his famed filly in the Derby went beyond the risk to her health.

"I’m kind of weird," Morrison told The Blood-Horse. "I think the Derby is a colts' race and it’s there to showcase the horses that are the top potential stallions. It’s kind of stupid for some jerk with a filly to screw that up."

So now in under a week, Morrison and Lauffer sell Rachel Alexandra to Jackson, and if she does show up in the Preakness, the sellers almost have to have known when they took the money where she was headed.

At what price do you sell a filly when you expect the buyer will take her in a direction that you believed was wrong?

Granted, the Preakness is a different race. For starters, it just isn't "The Derby." Figuring for scratches, there will probably be 10 or 12 starters at Pimlico instead of the Churchill classic's 19 or 20. And while about half of those will be running back from the Derby -- including, as of this writing, winner Mine That Bird -- the other half will be colts and geldings who weren't good enough to gain Derby admittance; fair to say a softer group.

But if she tries the Preakness, Rachel Alexandra will still be a filly in against boys, likely asked for everything she has for a mile and three sixteenths, when form suggests she might win Pimlico's Grade 2 Black Eyed Susan at 9 furlongs versus fillies in a relative canter.

Maybe having seen how the Derby played out, Morrison's mind was changing about whether fillies should run among colts. If so, he could've said as much -- and noted the two races' different circumstances -- and few in the industry or its fan base would've thought ill of his change of heart. Many would likely applaud his sportsmanship for giving Mine That Bird and the boys a run for their money. But Morrison, 74 years of age and long a commercial breeder, has now suggested he's getting too "up in years" to concern himself with Rachel Alexandra's potential profitability for him after racing and, we can infer, the effect such a dramatic win would have on her value as a broodmare. (Jackson, 79, sure has given thought to such things; when retired, Rachel Alexandra is already destined to meet Curlin.)

In fact, Morrison says he'd have sold Rachel Alexandra as a 2-year-old except he didn't think he'd get what she was worth.

So that's what it comes down to -- money. And Morrison, like Jackson, has been down this road before. He knows what it's like to sell the dream.

Morrison in 1999 bred a filly named You by mating You And I to the mare Our Dani, by Homebuilder. He saved her from being a cheap sale as a Keeneland yearling by buying her back for $9,000, put her in training and raced her twice (a win and a place), then sold her privately to Edmund Gann. You won eight of 21 starts for Gann ... five Grade 1 stakes ... final earnings $2,101,353.

"I have some regrets," said Morrison of You, "but given the facts at the time, I'd do the same thing again."

And he did.

For most people in the racing business, these these horses are indeed commodities. Even when they bear your granddaughter's name.

Before you light the torches and organize the mob, trust me when I say I'm not particularly being critical here; not of Morrison for selling Rachel Alexandra, nor of Jackson for buying her perhaps in hopes of testing her against colts. I don't know either gentleman, though from their histories, I have every reason to believe that both men absolutely love horse racing and admire the animals who give their all for the game. So I, as an observer, respect both of them. And from the earthy nature of Morrison's quotes, I have a feeling the small town Kansas boy in me would like that man a lot.

As for running fillies vs. colts, I can see points on both sides, but likely wouldn't hesitate to put a girl of mine in the gate against anyone's boys if I truly thought she could whip 'em. And besides, horse racing's house isn't merely big enough for differing opinions; with a glowing tote board in the infield and betting windows at every turn, that house is built upon them.

But at a time like this, when a homebred filly who has done everything her breeder could hope for is sold away, I'm compelled try and get inside that seller's mind. Because if I had bred a filly like this one, named her for my daughter, and had just shared her Grade 1 glory with a friend and trusted partner in horsemanship for 20 years, I'm not sure Sheikh Mohammed and Godolphin would have the kind of cash reserves it would take to buy me out.

But who knows. It's said that every man has his price.

I'd be eager to know exactly what that number was for Dolphus Morrison.