Rachel is back, or seems to be; bring on Zen

After two of the tougher "beats" you'll ever see in consecutive starts, Rachel Alexandra bounced back today with an easy win in the Fleur de Lis H.-G2 at Churchill Downs.

The 3-year-old champion filly and Horse of the Year won by a geared-down 10 1/2 lengths, covering the mile and an eight over the main track in a pretty stout 1:48.78, and largely looked like her old self.

But then again, why shouldn't she? The race was her third off a long layoff, often a top angle for handicappers. And whom, exactly, did she face, sent off at prohibitive 1/10 odds? Not enough speed to wear her out; not enough of a closer to catch her.

And certainly not Zardana, who beat her in a hard-fought New Orleans Ladies Stakes that was Rachel's first effort in 2010.

Nor Unrivaled Belle, who ran her down at the wire in the April 30 La Troienne S.-G2 over the same Churchill strip.

Neither of whom managed to get mentioned in the Blood-Horse coverage of this victory.

I'm sure everyone's just glad to see that the old Rachel is back. Or seems to be.

But let's face it, only four other horses lined up to try Rachel in today's Fleur de Lis. The "competition" -- and I do use that word loosely -- consisted of pace-contesters Distinctive Dixie (18.5/1) and Jessica is Back (5.9/1), who finished second and third, plus Multipass (33.6/1) and Made for Magic (13.6/1), neither of whom was ever a factor.

Made for Magic is a Grade 2 winner in 2010, but over synthetic at Hollywood Park, and bettors clearly didn't think she was the top threat to unseat Rachel Alexandra on conventional dirt today, sending her off as a distant third choice.

Second-favored Jessica is Back certainly is a rugged mare -- 11-for-42 going in with nearly $550,000 earned, two minor stakes wins, and a G3-placing at Hawthorne. But thinking she could beat Rachel Alexandra today (even the Rachel who showed up in New Orleans) would have been far-fetched. Her odds of roughly 6/1 were a pipe dream.

Distinctive Dixie was 4-for-15 lifetime and had placed twice in the listed Bayakoa Stakes at Oaklawn, but has never won a black type race. And Multipass has a single stakes-placing at Remington Park in Oklahoma.

So the race was really for second place and two cracks at G2 blacktype for a mare's catalog page. Not that there's anything wrong with trying.

This field, in fact, bore passing resemblance to the one I watched undefeated and twice-champion older mare Zenyatta crush in a hand-ride on April 9 at Oaklawn in the Apple Blossom H.-G1. Still, that group was markedly better. On that day, second place went to Taptam, who has three prior minor stakes wins but earned her first graded blacktype in the G1 affair. The other three runners were all prior Grade 3 winners: Third-place Be Fair; Just Jenda; and War Echo.

So what does today's win by Rachel really mean?

No more stalling on a showdown between Rachel and Zenyatta, that's what.

Zen goes for her 17th straight lifetime win on Sunday in the Vanity H.-G1 at Hollywood Park. And it will be a test. She'll face Rachel-beater Zardana -- a fellow 6-year-old trained by her own conditioner, John Shirreffs -- and 7-for-12 lifetime St. Trinians, among the seven total entries in the 9-furlong event.

Regardless whether Zen wins on Sunday (I suspect she will, but anything can happen) the next time she runs (barring injuries to either female) should be in a race -- somewhere, darned-near anywhere -- against Rachel Alexandra.

It would appear the Horse of the Year is back near her form from last year. And Zenyatta's never been out of form in her life, unless she proves so on Sunday.

Find 'em a mutual spot, and run 'em.

Horse of the Year Rachel's best, and best for Rachel

How do you define "better off?"

That's an important question in light of the results from my recent poll, in which more than two-thirds of respondents (27 out of 40) said they believed that Rachel Alexandra is not "better off, a year after being bought and campaigned by Jess Jackson and Steve Asmussen."

I presume most readers who took a stand against Jackson and Asmussen believe that Rachel is not as healthy and fit a horse now as she was last year, or perhaps as she might have been with different handling. Certainly she's beatable now -- defeated twice in a row in desperately close finishes during her first two starts in 2010. And she had proved unbeatable in 2009, going 8-for-8.

I'm going to come down on the side of the minority here. For her utmost impact on racing history, for her value, and for her long-term legacy, I think Rachel Alexandra benefited from Jess Jackson and Steve Asmussen.

What's certain in a situation like this is that nothing can be certain. Hindsight might be 20/20, but speculation (though I love engaging in it, too) usually isn't worth 20 cents.

There are, however, certain truisms of racing and horses. Not the least of these is that some horses are simply better (or at least more dominant among their peers) at age 2 or 3 than they ever will be after, while others are later-maturing.

And one axiom of life that's hard to ignore is this: You must strike while the iron is hot.

When Jackson's Stonestreet Stables acquired Rachel Alexandra after her scintillating, record-breaking victory in last year's Kentucky Oaks, there was little doubt he'd just bought the best 3-year-old filly in the country.

Bought had he bought the best horse?

That handy hindsight tells us probably not, since her unbeaten ways have not carried over into 2010, while Zenyatta continues to stand 17 hands tall at 16-0 lifetime. But by the end of last season, history shows, Jackson had bought the eventual Horse of the Year.

Following her crushing Oaks win, had Rachel stayed in the hands of her first trainer, Hal Wiggins, and her breeder, Dolphus Morrison (who doesn't believe in racing fillies against colts), she would have been pointed to the Black-Eyed Susan-G2 at Pimlico on Preakness Eve. Barring some freak incident or catastrophe, she'd have likely smashed a short field of sophomore fillies by the same sort of margin she'd posted in the Oaks. And while that win would have been another big step toward being champion 3-year-old filly, it would have done little toward earning her a Horse of the Year crown, and virtually nothing toward stamping her career as legendary.

Instead, Jackson and Asmussen entered her in the Preakness. There, Rachel did most of the work on the front end of a 9 1/2-furlong test, put away a talented speed horse in Big Drama (a 7-furlong record-setter) and still had the grit to hold off a gutsy Derby-showing Musket Man and the sharp and fast-closing Derby champ Mine That Bird to claim an historic win. She had beaten boys, she was the first filly since Nellie Morse in 1924 to win the Preakness, and now talk quickly shifted toward whether Rachel Alexandra could become Horse of the Year.

Jackson and Asmussen shrewdly backed off the throttle for Rachel's next start. They entered her at Belmont in the Mother Goose, which drew up predictably short after almost nobody thought it wise to enter their girl against Super Girl. She romped in the Mother Goose, setting stakes records for time and margin, but clearly expended much less effort than had she been asked to face colts and geldings again on the heels of her Preakness win.

Already 6-for-6 on the season with three Grade 1 wins, Rachel was positioned to at least stake a claim to Horse of the Year by collecting two more noteworthy victories. She gathered those in the Haskell Invitational -- where she all but ran Belmont Stakes winner Summer Bird and speedy sprinter Munnings off their feet in the slop -- and in September's Woodward Stakes at Saratoga, becoming the first female ever to win that race against older males; a race run since 1954.

By the finish line of her Woodward win, Rachel had done enough -- as the Eclipse voting months later bore out -- to be named Horse of the Year, despite not running in the Breeders' Cup and not facing Zenyatta, who scored an historic win of her own on that championship weekend as the first female ever to win the Breeders' Cup Classic.

The campaign clearly took a lot out of Rachel. She was cooped up (a debatable choice versus true turnout) for months before starting back to work. And unlike her championship season of 2009, she's proved unable to muster the gumption to stave off any and all challengers, getting nipped at the wire in the New Orleans Ladies Stakes by 6-year-old Zardana and nosed out of the La Troienne-G2 at Churchill by Unrivaled Belle.

But is Rachel worse? Isn't it possible that on these dates -- remember, Rachel's first two starts since a lengthy layoff -- a very fit older mare and a rising 4-year-old who is more lightly raced and at the top of her form cycle, were just a little bit better?

And even if Rachel is not her former self, who's to say she would have been anyway, even with less aggressive handling?

John Shirreffs has done a masterful job with two-time champion older female Zenyatta. She didn't race at all as a juvenile, and Shirreffs thereafter brought the giant mare along slowly, allowing her to grow into her body and her talent. As a result, she is as brilliant at age 6, if not more so, than she was during her first championship season at age 4.

But there's no guarantee that a softer handling of Rachel Alexandra at age 3 would have resulted in a 4-year-old filly to rival Zenyatta at 4. A more conservative course for Rachel at 3 could have still resulted in a 3-year-old filly title, but hardly Horse of the Year, and she still might not be any better at age 4 than she's proven so far to be.

And let's face it: Unlike Jerry and Ann Moss, who have chosen to bring Zenyatta back at age 6 for another season of racing (for which we should be cascading them with roses), there's almost no chance that Jess Jackson has any interest in racing Rachel at age 5, let alone 6. She'll be in the breeding shed next late-February or early March, being covered by Jackson's two-time Horse of the Year Curlin. So what was better for Rachel's future value as a broodmare (and the prospective prices of her foals)? Two really good seasons and one "lesser" championship among fillies and mares?

I think -- for her value (a practical concern in a sport that is a business) and for her legacy -- Rachel Alexandra was better served by one full-throttle season in which she shook the racing world and made history almost every time she ran, with the well-earned reward of 2009 Horse of the Year.

It's a trainer's job to recognize how and when to get the most out of his horse. Nobody could have gotten more out of Rachel Alexandra in 2009 than did Steve Asmussen; she was Horse of the Year.

Did that leave her "short" in 2010? It's impossible to say with any certainty; we can only be guessing. So that's no more than a definite maybe.

But it's safe to say that if Rachel Alexandra had been handled more conservatively last year, she'd only have been the champion 3-year-old filly, not Horse of the Year.

And this year, she probably still wouldn't be able to beat Zenyatta.

Rachel one year post-purchase: Better for it?

I launched this blog one year ago tomorrow with a lengthy pondering of the Rachel Alexandra purchase by Jess Jackson.

The brilliant 3-year-old filly had just completely left a field of her contemporaries in the Kentucky Oaks, leaving some to wonder whether she might have belonged in the Derby, instead. We would know within less than two weeks whether Rachel Alexandra "belonged" with the boys, as Jackson's camp, including trainer Steve Asmussen, pointed her toward the Preakness, instead of Pimlico's Black Eyed Susan, the traditional filly target. And her jockey, Calvin Borel, begged-off his Derby winner, Mine That Bird, to pilot his favored filly to victory in the Preakness, the first female to win the race since Nellie Morse in 1924.

Here we are a year later, and many steps have been run; races and championships won. Rachel was set on a course that her breeder and first owner, Dolphus Morrison, would never have taken; racing her three times against males. Morrison is among those owners (and trainers, and fans) who think that fillies belong in filly races, colts and geldings have "their" races, and never the twain shall meet.

Rachel proved up to the task in 2009. For Jackson and Asmussen, she rebounded from her gritty Preakness win with a cakewalk by record margin and time in a short-field running of the Mother Goose. Then she trounced a field of boys -- including Belmont Stakes winner Summer Bird -- over a wet track in the Haskell Invitational, becoming only the second filly to win that summer classic. (The first was champion Serena's Song in 1995.) Last, she gutted out a front-running win in the Woodward Stakes at Saratoga, the first female ever to win that race, which has been run annually since 1954.

Though she skipped the Breeders' Cup at Santa Anita -- owner Jackson had said for months he would not run his filly on the Pro-Ride synthetic course there, referring to such surfaces as "plastic" -- Rachel Alexandra's historic campaign was rewarded with Eclipse awards, not only as champion 3-year-old filly (which she was beyond doubt), but for Horse of the Year, to the chagrin of those who favored lifetime-unbeaten older mare Zenyatta.

The filly who had already set three records in 2009 for Morrison and his trainer and dear friend, Hall Wiggins -- that is, stakes-record times in the Golden Rod at Churchill and Martha Washington at Oaklawn Park, and a margin record in the Oaks -- went on for Jackson/Asmussen to set two records in the Mother Goose, and to win three indisputably historic victories vs. males. With Morrison and Wiggins it isn't an unreasonable assumption that Rachel would have been 3-year-old champion filly anyway. But with Jackson and Asmussen's aggressive handling, she became Horse of the Year.

So it would be difficult to argue that Rachel Alexandra was sold from a good situation into a lesser one.

Or would it?

After a grueling 3-year-old campaign, Rachel was laid-up for months without a work. She has come back to run tenaciously in a pair of stakes races -- and has lost them both by slim margins, the New Orleans Ladies to Zardana and most recently the La Troienne-G2 to Unrivaled Belle. Losing to an elder like Zardana in a comeback race after a long layoff is less surprising than being nipped at the wire by a fellow 4-year-old who'd made half as many lifetime starts and never won above the Grade 3 level.

Was Rachel Alexandra merely ahead of her age group as a 3-year-old, and now they've caught up? If so, she would hardly be the first horse to have been as good (especially by comparison) as she'd ever be at age 3 (or in some cases even at age 2), but only a "good" or even "average" horse at age 4 and beyond.

Or is she just not the same filly that she was in 2009? Has she "lost" something along the way? A step, or a little bit of heart? ... And if so, whose fault (if anyone's) is that? Should she have been handled more conservatively -- say, like a John Shirreffs might do, and did with Zenyatta at ages 3 and 4?

So on the anniversary eve of this blog, a poll: Rachel Alexandra, better off with Jackson and Asmussen?

Vote. And discuss in the comments thread, please. I can't wait to see what some of you think on this subject.

I'll tell you what I believe after the poll closes.

Meanwhile, I hope more than nine people vote, unlike my last Rachel poll. Geez, she gets beat once (now twice) and all the Rachel fans go into hiding?

Horse of the Year no longer 'unrivaled belle'

For those keeping score, the correct response in my recent poll should have been "someone else." Nobody had it.

When asked whether Rachel Alexandra would win the La Troienne S.-G2 at Churchill Downs today -- or would Zardana make the 2009 Horse of the Year start the season 0-for-2 by defeating her again as she did last out in New Orleans -- a whopping nine individuals cast their ballots. Five cast their aspersions on Rachel (in a manner of speaking) by choosing Zardana to win.

Well, you're all wrong.

In a stirring stretch drive -- Rachel's third in as many races dating back to September's historic and grueling victory over older males in the Grade 1 Woodward Stakes -- a fellow 4-year-old filly, and a lightly raced one at that, showed that the champion does have her equals. Unrivaled Belle, making her eighth lifetime start and coming in off a Grade 3 win at Gulfstream, outfinished Rachel by a head at the wire.

Good for Rachel and her connections that she was only 90 percent. Next time she'll win.

Still, it has to be discouraging for owner Jess Jackson, trainer Steve Asmussen, jockey Calvin Borel, and all of Rachel's fans. She's come quite close to winning both of her starts after a lengthy layoff. She does seem to have shown guts down the stretch. But -- despite setting relatively easy fractions of :24.79 and :48.81, she didn't have enough in the tank to finish off the competition at only a mile and a sixteenth.

Remember, Rachel won the Preakness at 9 1/2 furlongs last year after setting fractions of 23-flat and 46 3/5. But on this day, she can't finish the job going a furlong shorter and on an easier pace.

If this is the case -- And who is to say at this point? -- Rachel wouldn't be the first horse to have been better at 3 than she'll ever be again.

And it's worth noting that after such a layoff -- about six months between her last race of '09 and first of '10 -- Rachel still might not be at her 4-year-old best. That "90 percent" line isn't necessarily an untruth told by Jackson; just something you don't really say on the eve of a race because it sounds like you're either sandbagging or getting your alibis in line before they're even needed. So Rachel in her third start off the layoff, a common angle to play for handicappers, might be just enough better that she beats whomever tries her down the lane on that occasion.

Unless that "whomever" is Zenyatta. Because if the likes of Zardana and Unrivaled Belle can run down Rachel Alexandra during stretch drives in consecutive races, there'd likely be no holding off the closer of all closers.

Excuse me, please, Mr. Jackson

What body part is it to which excuses are compared?

That thought crossed my mind as The Blood-Horse reports today -- on the eve of the La Troienne S.-G2 at Churchill Downs -- that principal owner Jess Jackson has declared his filly, reigning Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra, "90 percent fit," declaring that she "should win."

Nothing like lowering expectations for a champion.

Jackson's statement allows him to appear as though he has confidence in his filly. After all, he says that she "should win." If she does, all the better, because she did it without even being at her best; her owner said so before the race. But if she doesn't win, well, the connections already have the built-in excuse that she was only "90 percent fit."

I think it's a safe bet that the John Shirreffs barn's Zardana is 100 percent fit, or close as a horse gets (because Shirreffs and Co. just don't seem to run horses that aren't). And considering Zardana has beaten Rachel once this year already, 90 percent of whatever Rachel's packin' might still not be enough.

Jackson upped the rhetoric, and lowered the bar, by adding that should Rachel lose on Friday, it's no big deal. That's because Friday's race is just one more baby step toward "the ultimate goal," in Jackson's words -- the Breeders' Cup this fall at back at Churchill.

I hope Rachel makes it there and I hope she's even better than she was throughout 2009, her championship season.

But I'm not very confident in her chances in the La Troienne. Probably not even 90 percent.

Rachel going 0-for-2 in 2010?

With the draw of the $400,000 La Troienne S.-G2 on Friday's Kentucky Oaks undercard, and word that defending Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra will face just five foes, it's time for a poll, which I haven't undertaken in a good while.

Among the quintent to line up against Rachel Friday will be Zardana, the 6-year-old who handed a loss to 2009's most fabulous filly in her 2010 debut, the New Orleans Ladies Stakes. Zardana is trained by John Shirreffs, who also conditions "that other Z-girl," twice-champion older mare (and still undefeated) Zenyatta.

Can Zardana (or someone else) get one over on Rachel again, leaving her 0-for-2 in 2010? ... That's the poll.

Thinking deeper, if the Shirreffs barn can bit ... err, mare-slap ... Rachel twice in as many tries with their undoubtedly lesser runner, will Jess Jackson and company ever let their girl meet the other player in 2009's horse of the year debate?

Team Rachel: A camp divided?

So the Apple Blossom showdown between Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta is off the board, leaving fans to wonder when the two will actually meet.

But there's an even bigger question in my mind right now.

Just how panicked -- and potentially divided -- is the Rachel Alexandra camp?

In the wake of Saturday's loss in the New Orleans Ladies Stakes by the reigning Horse of the Year, who was making her 2010 debut, comments by the principals give us more than a few hints at what they were thinking not only going into that race, but looking ahead to the now-scratched Oaklawn appearance.

Rachel's faithful rider, Calvin Borel, defended his filly as "a real racehorse" who didn't quit despite being headed in the stretch by eventual winner Zardana. "She needed the race, that's all."

And Rachel certainly did need the race. She'd been off since a Sept. 9 win against older colts and geldings in Saratoga's Woodward S.-G1. And while some discussion group friends of mine think she had plenty of work prior to her return, I disagree. Though she had seven published works after her four-and-a-half-month layoff, the first of those came on Jan. 31. I've had trainers tell me in the past that it usually takes two or even three months to bring a horse back to the starting gate off a significant layoff. Rachel started the New Orleans Ladies Stakes some 42 days after her first official work back at the track -- only six weeks, maybe a little bit short.

Trainer Steve Asmussen seems to know it.

"The filly's lacking fitness," he said immediately after the race. "It was my job to have her there, and I didn't do it. ... She's not where I thought she was and if I had thought she'd get beat, she wouldn't run."

But she did run. And not all that terribly, posting a Beyer speed figure of 100, not exactly crappy for a race that was six months after her last start. And one wonders what might have happened had Borel let the girl run instead keeping her in a stranglehold in an apparent attempt to teach Rachel to rate.

"I wanted to let her run her race early, but they wanted me to wait," Borel said after the loss. "I wanted to go on past the speed horse (42/1 Fighter Wing) early. I'd have got by her anytime and my filly could have gone on, but they wanted me to wait and not get into her until the sixteenth pole."

Steve Haskin of The Blood-Horse details the many ways that Rachel seemed "not the same" on Saturday. And he astutely points out that had one or another of a very few things gone Rachel's way -- say, if Borel had let the champion have her head, or had Zardana not shipped east from California for the race -- the reigning Horse of the Year might well have won (in the latter case, quite handily) and the Apple Blossom would still be a "go."

But it isn't, and not because her trainer wrote off the upcoming race. Haskin notes that only an hour after Asmussen told reporters that Rachel had come out of Saturday's loss quite well, her principal owner, Jess Jackson, was scrapping the Oaklawn showdown.

I can't completely blame him, but it is starting to look like Jackson is training this horse, rather than letting his Eclipse champion trainer do the job.

Rachel's trainer initially said there was no way his filly could race against Zenyatta at Oaklawn because he didn't have time to work her up to a prep race and then get her back fit for an early-April Apple Blossom. Then Jackson finagled Oaklawn into setting a slightly later date for the Grade 1 race (not to mention bumping the purse tenfold, from $500,000 to $5 million if both Rachel and Zen race). And Asmussen was left with no choice but to get Rachel into a race by mid-March if he had any hope of turning her back on April 9.

Asmussen has said the filly isn't as fit as he'd like, though he reports she came out of her prep race well, apart from a gutsy and narrow loss. But literally minutes after Asmussen's statement on Rachel's post-race condition, Jackson nixes the Apple Blossom sooner, rather than later, and instead of allowing his trainer at least a few days to see whether the filly can bounce back in time to face Zenyatta for $5 million.

Borel laments being instructed to hold back his filly in a race that she might have run off with if not choked on the backstretch. And he doesn't say that "he" or "Steve" wanted Rachel rated at all costs, probably to teach her to save energy in a race against the late-kicking Zenyatta. Rather, Borel says "they" wanted the jockey to hold back his horse. If you think the second part of "they" is anyone other than Mr. Jackson, then I have a yearling who is guaranteed to win the 2012 Kentucky Derby, and shares are reasonably priced in the low six-figures.

Granted, Jess Jackson paid untold millions for this filly less than a year ago, off her smashing victory in early May's Kentucky Oaks. And the 2009 campaign plotted for her thereafter resulted in an undefeated season and honors as both top 3-year-old filly and Horse of the Year. He's certainly played a hands-on role throughout as is his right; it's his horse, and his money.

But Jackson less and less seems the type to just hire top professionals and trust them to do their jobs, without meddling. Asmussen is apologizing for not having the horse where she needed to be for a pair of races I'm not sure he really wanted her to run in the first place. And Borel sounds frustrated as the man in the irons, being told to rigidly employ a strategy that he clearly thinks got his filly beat. And they're all probably scrambling for answers.

Losing, even narrowly and with guts, has a way of exposing every tiny crack in a team's foundation. And the contrast between Rachel's and Zenyatta's connections becomes even more stark.

Way back last June, when Zenyatta's owner, Jerry Moss, got a little too bold in his statements about letting his unbeaten mare hunt down the upstart filly wherever, whenever, he soon backed down. I speculated that change of heart came after a discussion with his trainer, John Shirreffs, whose course for the horse was being speculatively altered. It wasn't long before those two were harmonizing again on their smash hit, "We're Breeders' Cup Bound."

I'm not sure Team Rachel has it so together.

And whether Rachel Alexandra has a great 2010 and any chance of beating Zenyatta -- should they ever meet -- depends on her humans getting back on the same page in the songbook.

Messin' with perfection

With a potential bout between title-holders approaching at Oaklawn Park on April 9, John Shirreffs -- who trains two-time champion older female Zenyatta -- has already knocked down Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra, and he did it with a whole lot less mare.

Two-time champion older female Zenyatta on Saturday moved to within one win of tying a group of horses that include all-time greats Citation and Cigar with 16 consecutive victories by cruising to a 1 1/4-length victory in the Santa Margarita H.-G1 at Santa Anita. Meanwhile, 2009 Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra was summarily dethroned in the ungraded New Orleans Ladies Stakes by a determined, and Shirreffs-trained Zardana, who overtook her in the stretch.

Both champions were heavy favorites in their 2010 debuts, especially Rachel, who was sent off at a ridiculous 1/2o at Fair Grounds. But we really could have seen this coming.

Zenyatta, though briefly "retired," has in fact remained pretty consistently and impressively in training since her Breeders' Cup Classic win at Santa Anita in November. Meanwhile, Rachel took several months off after beating older males in September's Woodward S.-G1, a gutty effort that obviously took much out of her. And her conditioner, Steve Asmussen, said prior to the New Orleans Ladies' Stakes that his now 4-year-old filly wasn't 100 percent.

Rachel probably shouldn't have needed to be 100 percent to beat the group of four that she was presented this weekend at Fair Grounds. Zardana is a Grade 2 winner on synthetic, but was trying dirt for the first time in a good while and is simply no Zenyatta. And while rider Calvin Borel seemed to be discontent with the ride he was asked to give Rachel on Saturday -- "I wanted to let her run her race early, but they wanted me to wait" -- ultimately Rachel had a good trip and a pretty easy first six furlongs (1:12.86), and still couldn't hold on after taking the lead, battling but losing to Zardana in 1:43.55.

"My filly tried hard," said Borel. "She needed the race, that's all."

And with that, I couldn't agree more. Rachel really needed this race.

Minutes later Saturday, on the west coast, Zenyatta made her fans a bit nervous for a moment -- as is her wont -- but ultimately eased past the Santa Margarita field to win by more than a length without jockey Mike Smith ever striking her with the whip. It was as professional as any victory in her 15-race unbeaten career. And she looks as perfect as her lifetime record heading toward the potentially $5 million Apple Blossom Handicap at Oaklawn, which Shirreffs says is Zen's target, Rachel or "no."

As for Rachel, the Apple Blossom might well be a "no."

"The filly's lacking fitness," said Asmussen after Rachel's defeat. "It was my job to have her there, and I didn't do it. ... She's not where I thought she was and if I had thought she'd get beat, she wouldn't (have) run. You take her back, you evaluate her, you see how her mood is, her diet, how she goes back to the racetrack, how she breezes. No crystal ball could see that far ahead (to the Apple Blossom)."

Clearly Rachel wasn't perfect on Saturday, but her career never has been. Though she was flawless at 3, beating colts and geldings in three Grade 1 races and in every way deserving Horse of the Year honors, Rachel had been defeated three times as a 2-year-old. Now she's o-fer in one start at age 4 and, in her own trainer's words, clearly not where she needs to be less than a month away from that looming showdown with Zenyatta at Oaklawn.

And Asmussen knows full well that Rachel had better be close as she can to perfect before she goes messin' with perfection.