New B.C. board elected; now they're cookin'

So, 13 people have been elected to the board of trustees of The Breeders' Cup, and once again, I'm not among them.

Jokes aside, I'm pretty pleased to see one name in particular on this list.

Thoroughbred Daily News reports that among the baker's dozen of board members is "Iron Chef" Bobby Flay, a restauranteur and Food Network personality.

The elections Flay and 12 others are expected to be ratified by the current Breeders' Cup Board of Members and Trustees at a meeting on July 16. The "others" include Roy Jackson of Lael Stables, breeder (among others) of the great and ill-fated Barbaro and a board member since 2008. I have a lot of respect for Mr. Jackson and his wife, Gretchen, as well.

Rounding out the list are: Antony Beck of Gainesway Farm; Niall Brennan, one of the nation's top sales consigners of 2-year-olds; Case Clay of Three Chimneys; Jerry Crawford of Donegal Racing/Derby Dreams Partnership; G. Watts Humphrey Jr. of Shawnee Farm; Bret Jones of Airdrie Bloodstock; Michael T. Levy of Bluewater Farm; Garrett O'Rourke of Juddmonte Farms; Satish Sanan of Padua Stables; Robert Trussell Jr. of Walmac Farm; and David Willmot of Kinghaven Farms.

Beck, Humphrey, Jones and Sanan join Jackson as members re-elected to new terms on the board. Not re-elected to the board were Reynolds Bell Jr., Thomas Gaines, R.D. Hubbard, J. Michael O'Farrell Jr., and Christopher Young.

My choosing to single out Flay doesn't mean I have any ill will or opposition to anyone else on the new board. But Flay's inclusion on this governing panel gives me a bit more hope for the immediate and long-term future of both Breeders' Cup and the sport.

To promote the Breeders' Cup, and horse racing itself, the sport's exposure must be increased; its image updated and polished. It isn't that the people at the highest levels of the sport aren't classy -- they are, sometimes almost to a fault. But for every Jerry Moss (recognizable as the co-founder of A&M Records, etc.) there are 10 owners who are often wildly successful in their industries, but invisible to the public.

Not so with Flay, who is a high-profile figure not only on Food Network, but on CBS' "The Early Show," as host of the forthcoming "America's Next Great Restaurant" on NBC, and on Sirius XM radio. His face and name are also slapped all over American print media and advertising.

Pretty good for a guy who dropped out of high school.

And yet, little has been done to fully exploit the fame of Flay and other celebrities as ambassadors for the sport. I'd wager that the vast majority of Flay's fans from Food Network have no idea about his involvement in horse racing. And check out his Wikipedia page; horse racing isn't even mentioned in passing.

The recognizable, charismatic Flay should quickly become a key face for Breeders' Cup over the next couple of seasons. Take part in as many public announcements and events as possible. Draw cameras and the attention of casual- or non-race-fans to Breeders' Cup and to the sport that nobody else's name on that list would attract.

Racing would like to entice celebrities back as fans, and has tried to promote the sport with ads such as the "Who Do You Like?" campaign, featuring the likes of actor Jerry O'Connell (a big fan), football standout Jerome Bettis, musician Kid Rock and others. That clip also features Flay and others who own race horses (like basketball coach Rick Pitino) -- along with many celebs who didn't -- making no differentiation between the two. For all the ill-informed viewer knew, each of those individuals was just showing up at the track on Kentucky Derby Day (or some other, major race-date) because it's a place to be seen, not because they've actually invested time, thought, money and energy into the sport on a year-round basis. ... Not because they love it and live it.

So that's what I hope Bobby Flay can bring to the Breeders' Cup -- star-power in a position of some authority.

I think he'll do a credible job as an equal member of the board when decisions are made. But Flay's truest and longest-lasting value to Breeders' Cup could come by standing him up in front of the other 12 members when it comes time for public relations.

Fixed-site Breeders' Cup loses sight of the point

In the May 15 issue of The Blood-Horse (and online), WinStar Farm co-owner Bill Casner, a board member of Breeders' Cup Ltd., touted the selection of Santa Anita as the sole site to host future Breeders' Cup "world championship" weekends.

Casner isn't wrong on all the facts. Only on the conclusion he reaches.

A fixed-site Breeders' Cup misses the point of holding a Breeders' Cup in the first place.

Casner's opinion piece deftly lays out numerous reasons why settling on one site -- and a warm, dry one, near a major urban market -- makes plenty of financial sense. He cites stability as a reason the U.S. Open Tennis Championships grew its sponsorships from $14 million to $60 million since establishing a permanent site. (Of course, that move to Flushing Meadows -- from Forest Hills a few miles away, where the tourney had finally settled in New York City 10 years prior after being held at various locations for decades -- was made in 1978, and Casner doesn't calculate how much influence inflation has played on that $46 million difference. He also ignores that the U.S. Open Golf Championship is successful despite being moved annually.)

Casner calls staging the Breeders' Cup at different sites each year a "daunting challenge" logistically. This I don't doubt. But that doesn't stop the NFL from moving the Super Bowl (a two-week tourist event these days) around the country every season. ... And the Super Bowl will soon be held in Jersey in February. We can't expect people to watch horse racing in 55-degree weather at Belmont in November?

Casner also thinks selecting Santa Anita as a permanent site will help the Breeders' Cup better compete as a global event with the ridiculously lucrative (for winners) Dubai World Cup held each March. But let's face it; how do you really compete financially against an event run by a guy who owns a whole friggin' country?

Bottom-line, Casner's arguments in favor of Santa Anita as the sole site for future renewals of the Breeders' Cup were about one thing: That is, the bottom line.

In a sport that is also a business, the money side of the equation surely can't be ignored. After all, no purse, no race.

But Casner's sales pitch pays only lip-service at best to a pair of crucial elements that -- without being put at the top of Breeders' Cup's priorities -- will defeat the very purpose of holding the races.

He all but ignores the fans and the "sport."

Casner's nod to the race-going public can be summarized thusly: Santa Anita is a great place to watch racing ("The morning experience of watching horses train at Clocker's Corner is second to none," etc.); and, Los Angeles has great weather, plus plenty for visitors to see, eat and do when the horses aren't on the track.

I can't contest these points. Though I've not yet been to Santa Anita, it's certainly on my racetrack "bucket list." And, presently living in North Carolina -- where no track ever to be chosen as a Breeders' Cup host site will be within "day trip" distance -- holding the event in Southern California, South Florida, Kentucky, New York or anywhere else is pretty much all the same to me. I'm having to book a hotel at least, if not also a flight and a rental car.

But it isn't the same to the Joe Pick-Sixes who are regulars on weekends at Monmouth, or Belmont and Aqueduct, or Churchill, or Calder. Casner's desire to hold the Breeders' Cup every year at Santa Anita would essentially be telling the sport's true fans everywhere in the country except Southern California that their favorite or nearest venue is permanently excluded from hosting what is allegedly racing's biggest weekend. Dyed-in-the-wool race fans in the heart of U.S. thoroughbred country, Kentucky, and in major breeding and racing states like Florida and New York -- not to mention those who patronize sites like Arlington Park in Chicago, Lone Star Park in Texas or Woodbine in Canada, all of which have hosted prior Cups -- would never again be able to buy tickets for both race-days of the Breeders' Cup while enjoying a good rest on Friday night in their own beds.

On the other hand, Casner does contend that siting the Breeders' Cup permanently at Santa Anita would bring back a certain type of fan: Celebrities.

"L.A. is the heart of the entertainment industry," he writes. "Bringing the stars back to the races will be a huge asset in stimulating fan interest and attendance."

I actually agree with Casner that racing could elevate its public profile across all demographics -- even among the People of Wal-Mart hoi polloi -- through greater patronage of the sport by the "People Magazine" set. Americans are notorious for their stargazing. Inquiring minds constantly want to know what's up with the George Clooneys and Scarlett Johanssons of the world.

But that stellar segment of the casual-race-fan set turns out in droves in "little" Louisville, Ky., on the first Saturday of every May for what is, without argument, America's biggest race. (And thus America's "race at which to be seen.") If the Breeders' Cup doesn't hold sufficient interest for the occasional (and famous and filthy rich) fan, delivering it to their doorsteps isn't really answer. Don't these people love to travel (for the right event), and can't they afford it?

In the process of making the "world championship" races a backyard-Hollywood affair, Casner and Breeders' Cup would be telling more devoted race fans across the country that they have to pack their bags, use up their hard-earned vacation and buy their plane tickets to see a Breeders' Cup -- no waiting for it to return to your area; it never will -- because the supposed biggest weekend in all of thoroughbred racing isn't a compelling enough event to convince the insanely wealthy Hollywood crowd to spring for a trip to such un-cosmopolitan cities as New York (Broadway) and Miami (South Beach).

And a key element of racing's fan base provides a convenient segue into the other half of the argument against Santa Anita as a fixed site for the Breeders' Cup: Horseplayers.

Racing might not be "nothing" without the men and women who gamble on it. But it would be a whole lot less "something" even than the shadow of its former self that horse racing in America has become. And I can't imagine all that many horseplayers eagerly anticipate handicapping the Breeders' Cup on Santa Anita's Pro-Ride. They just aren't honest races.

Take last year's Breeders' Cup Classic: The race was won by Zenyatta, a brilliant mare facing boys who also happened to be a homestanding, Southern California, synthetic-track monster. She was sent off as the favorite, but only at about 2.80/1; she won like she was 2/5. Second place went to Gio Ponti, the Eclipse champion turf horse of 2009. Third place was Twice Over, a British-bred making his first-ever start not on the turf. Fourth was Summer Bird, a Belmont Stakes and Travers winner also making his first start on synthetic.

Where to begin in figuring races that could annually be equal-parts dirt horses trying to cross-over to synthetic, turf horses likewise making a surface-switch, and horses with actual synthetic form from which to judge?

And if handicappers don't have a sporting chance at figuring out which horses might figure in a main-track Breeders' Cup race at Santa Anita, what about the horses and their connections? The fields themselves for the 2009 Breeders' Cup at Santa Anita disprove Casner's Blood-Horse contention that "the international racing community has demonstrated over the last two Breeders' Cup events that it will bring its best horses to Santa Anita."

Casner can't be completely right, considering the connections behind two of arguably the three best horses in the world last year, snubbed the 2009 "world championships" altogether.

Where was European sensation Sea the Stars? At home across the Atlantic, considering he'd already done more than enough to prove himself one of the best colts Europe had seen in decades and he didn't need to brave the ship to California and the Santa Anita heat (by British standards, with the horse's winter coat already growing in) to prove himself any further.

Or Rachel Alexandra? It's arguable whether she could've been made fit for the Breeders' Cup, considering how much her September Woodward Stakes win over males seemed to take out of her; she was rested for months after and has come back in 2010 to be narrowly beaten twice in as many starts. But Rachel's aggressive schedule was set out with no intent of being at Santa Anita for the Breeders' Cup anyway. Principal owner Jess Jackson refused to run his prized filly "on plastic" (Pro-Ride); she was declared a non-starter for the B.C. months before the race-draw.

And Rachel wasn't the only American horse held out of the 2009 Breeders' Cup because the "dirt" races would not be run on dirt. Although health and other reasons could be argued as part of the decision (especially for some of these who still haven't started since), the Pro-Ride track at Santa Anita was reportedly the reason behind the defections from the Breeders' Cup by at least three potential B.C. Sprint entries (Fabulous Strike, Kodiak Kowboy and Munnings), Filly & Mare Sprint hopeful Indian Blessing (who'd placed in the race over Pro-Ride a year prior), and top juveniles of both genders, Hot Dixie Chick (Spinaway S.-G1 at 2), Jackson Bend (four stakes wins at 2), and Dublin (Hopeful S.-G1 at 2).

Longtime Southern California fixture D. Wayne Lukas says artificial surfaces are, "just too unpredictable." That they, "(make) good horses average and average horses good." Even John Shirreffs, who trains Zenyatta, has told the New York Daily News that he "hates" synthetic tracks.

Lukas, last fall, on his trainee, Dublin: "If I don't run in the Breeders' Cup, he doesn't have to run on artificial surfaces the rest of his life."

Better think again, D. Wayne. Bill Casner wants to throw your best horses onto that Pro-Ride every year from (not quite) here on out.

Beyond the Pro-Ride itself -- which is more than enough reason to dismiss not just Santa Anita, but any synthetic main surface, as a fixture location for the Breeders' Cup -- the very nature of settling the "championship" weekend in one location, forever, turns up its nose at the notion of fairness in racing. If Santa Anita is the site for all future Breeders' Cups, then every horse in America not based in Southern California becomes a shipper for every Breeders' Cup. (Of course that's the case for foreign horses, but it always will be, hence the trouble with considering this a "world championship" anyway; some connections won't ship to the DWC, either.)

That could be a boon to SoCal trainers, as top horses would have to spend at least part of the year in Cali prepping for the Cup. It could swell the fields of races like the Pacific Classic. But it could causes horses to defect from training stables throughout the rest of the country. And might it eviscerate fields even for Grade 1 races on the opposite coast, like the Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont, historically a key prep for the B.C. Classic?

And wouldn't a horse like Lava Man have relished the home field advantage of Santa Anita? One of my all-time favorites, he wasn't able to finish ahead of much of anybody outside of Cali, but would have a short-price shot at two-time Horse of the Year if the B.C. had been run at Santa Anita in 2005-06 instead of 2008-09.

Bill Casner wrote 14 paragraphs on why Santa Anita should be the permanent site of the Breeders' Cup without any mention of equity or quality in the racing, nor even a cursory dismissal of arguments that a synthetic main track could cost the Breeders' Cup a slew of dirt-only horses defecting from its starting gates.

I can only presume that Casner believes locking-down the B.C. at S.A. would force folks like Jess Jackson to race there, whether or not they want to. But that potential conflict is not in the best interests of the Breeders' Cup specifically, nor of American racing on the whole.

Maybe it's time for the Breeders' Cup to admit it isn't the "world championships" of racing. Heck, last year it wasn't even the national championships. Rachel Alexandra (3-year-old filly, Horse of the Year) and Kodiak Kowboy (sprinter) won three Eclipse titles while snubbing the Breeders' Cup because of the venue and its Pro-Ride. Lookin at Lucky was champion 2-year-old despite a close beat in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile. Summer Bird was champion 3-year-old colt without hitting the board on Breeders' Cup weekend. Gio Ponti was champion older male despite losing the Classic to a girl, and champion turf horse despite running off the turf in the Breeders' Cup.

That's seven of 11 Eclipse Awards intended for horses running on the flat being handed to horses that didn't win -- or, in three cases, even run in -- a Breeders' Cup race.

If Bill Casner and Breeders' Cup Ltd. want their weekend to be all it can be -- maybe the world championships they hope for, but certainly the weekend every year in American racing for horses of all ages -- then the racing must come first; the fans and handicappers a close second. (And they will follow great racing).

That will never be the case on Pro-Ride at Santa Anita.

Zenyatta in the Classic? Horse of the Year?

I'm going to make this one short and sweet.

Trainer John Shirreffs says he's "definitely" leaning toward running champion older female Zenyatta against males -- going 10 furlongs for her first time -- in the Breeders' Cup Classic, rather than defending her title in the Breeders' Cup Used-to-be-Distaff. (Is it obvious enough yet that I think "Ladies Classic" is a lame name?)

She's entered for both, but an anticipated weekend workout should determine, said Shirreffs, whether she's peaking and ready to face the boys.

My question to you: If Zenyatta wins the Classic, can she supplant Rachel Alexandra -- who is the front-runner in the clubhouse with three wins over males -- atop the leader board for Horse of the Year?

Poll at left.

The nominations are in ...

And it's interesting to me that there are as many horses pre-entered for the Breeders' Cup Marathon at 14 furlongs as there are for either the Filly & Mare Sprint and the Breeders' Cup Sprint -- 11 for each race.

Of the races less than a mile, only the turf sprint -- of which there's no comparable race for females, so some fillies and mares are in it -- has more pre-entries, 22. And seven of those horses are cross-entered into other Breeders' Cup races.

It's worth noting that there's no "marathon" specifically for females, as well. But fillies and mares can go 10 furlongs on grass in the Filly & Mare Turf and 9 on the synthetic in the Ladies Please-Call-it-a-Distaff-Again and those races drew only 10 and nine pre-entries.

I look forward to the Marathon and I hope it continues.

Breeders' Cup loses Indian Blessing

Another major defection has weakened a 2009 Breeders' Cup already bruised by cold shoulders thrown by other major contenders.

The second straight running of the Cup during the Oak Tree meeting at Santa Anita was already suffering from the long-planned absence of likely champion 3-year-old filly and potential Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra. Her principal owner, Jess Jackson, says he doesn't want the filly racing "on plastic" -- that is, Santa Anita's Pro-Ride synthetic main track.

Now trainer Bob Baffert has said his dual-champion 4-year-old filly Indian Blessing would not be pre-entered for the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint. Baffert said the Indian Charlie filly -- who was the 2-year-old champion female of 2007 and champion female sprinter in 2008 -- simply has a distaste for the Pro-Ride.

"I think I'm going to pass," Baffert said. "She just doesn't like the track. What can you do?

"She looks good. It's frustrating. I'm not going to pre-enter because I don't want the temptation to change my mind."

Indian Blessing, who has won 10 of 16 lifetime for $2,995,420, was beaten over the Pro-Ride by Ventura (also a Grade 1 winner on turf) in last year's Filly & Mare Sprint, though she still finished second in that race

Rachel Alexandra and Indian Blessing aren't the only top horses whose connections are ducking the Breeders' Cup's encore performance at Santa Anita. It's official that the very fast (for six furlongs) Fabulous Strike will not appear at Santa Anita, either. The horse is 14-for-21 lifetime on dirt, but was beaten sixth lengths in a fifth-place finish in the Breeders' Cup Sprint on Pro-Ride last year. Trainer Todd Beattie is already looking forward to the Breeders' Cup Sprint on real dirt at Churchill Downs.

Changing their minds at the last minute and deciding to ship for the Cup are the connections of Kodiak Kowboy, the horse that has handed two losses to Fabulous Strike this year. Though a stakes winner on synthetic at Woodbine as a juvenile, the colt's four worst lifetime speed figures all have come on synthetic surfaces, and his connections seemed more interested in winning the Cigar Mile at Aqueduct on Nov. 28 to add an exclamation point to his stallion resume by gaining Grade 1 wins at 6, 7 and 8 furlongs.

It's good to see that Kodiak Kowboy, at least, most likely will appear.

I'm a fan of the Breeders' Cup's traveling road-show format. And I think it's no small surprise that the first time the Breeders' Cup decided to leave its tents staked at the same track for two years in a row, troubles commenced. Especially since that track is a synthetic surface.

We almost certainly won't see defections like these from the Cup next year, at Churchill.

And though the sites such as Woodbine and Arlington Park -- past host sites now switched to synthetics -- still are names in the mix for future renewals, I'm wondering how long it will be until the next Breeders' Cup is scheduled over a "plastic" racetrack.

If Breeders' Cup management is wise, I would say it shouldn't be in 2011, either.

Poll: STS over Rachel, 2-1

The votes are in, and my readers, at least, heavily side with Sea The Stars over Rachel Alexandra as the "best horse you won't see" at this year's Breeders' Cup.

Truth be told, Sea The Stars isn't definitely out of the Breeders' Cup. Owner Christopher Tsui says it's 50-50 whether the Irish-bred Cape Cross colt will run for the first time on an all-weather surface in trying to win the Breeders' Cup Classic at Oak Tree at Santa Anita in November.

But I figure he won't be there.

Sea The Stars is riding a seven-race win streak, five of them in Group 1 stakes. It's an historically unprecedented season, as well. He was not only the first horse since Nashwan in 1989 to win the English Derby and Two Thousand Guineas "double," but surpassed that feat by becoming the very first to go on and win the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. He should be hands-down European champion and has little or nothing to prove by winning the Breeders' Cup Classic among a field that is likely to include among its favorites a pair of horses he's beaten several times before: Rip Van Winkle and Mastercraftsman.

Of course, Rachel has had quite the historic 3-year-old campaign of her own. From record-setting romps in the Kentucky Oaks and the Mother Goose Stakes, to beating colts in the Preakness Stakes (first filly to win since Nellie Morse in 1924) and Haskell Invitational, to becoming the first female ever to win the Woodward Stakes against older males, Rachel is easily the Eclipse 3-year-old filly champion on this side of the pond, and the leader in the clubhouse for Horse of the Year.

She's definitely not running in the Breeders' Cup. Principal owner Jess Jackson has made that clear for months, and recently confirmed that her Woodward win would be her last race in 2009.

But at least Jackson says we'll see Rachel on the track in 2010. Sea The Stars is destined for stud duty in Ireland without running at age 4.

Both horses staged historic campaigns. Both were clearly the best of their age and gender -- Rachel perhaps best of both genders -- on their respective continents. And since a majority of my readers are Stateside, I figured a poll between Sea The Stars and Rachel would have relatively close results.

I was wrong. It appears that even American fans are beginning to realize what racing and bloodstock experts have noted for some weeks now -- Sea The Stars is one of the best Europe has seen in ages. He garnered 37 of the 56 votes cast, for 66 percent. Rachel had 18 votes for 32 percent. (One vote was cast for Some Other Horse, namely Caribbean standout Sicotico.)

Of course, the some of the same superlatives used for Sea The Stars can be said of Rachel Alexandra. There have been some great 3-year-old fillies over the past 20 years -- Ashado, Silverbulletday, Go For Wand and others -- but it's hard to ignore that Rachel has done things even the likes of those champions never accomplished.

It will be a bit anticlimactic not to see Rachel and Sea The Stars (presuming he doesn't) running in the Breeders' Cup.

Still, there should be some very good races. And if an American horse manages to rebuff the British Invasion in the Classic, it will be an historic Breeders' Cup weekend in its own right.

For Yanks, Gitano Hernando's upset in Oak Tree's Goodwood Stakes an upsetting Classic preview

No doubt Gitano Hernando's victory in Saturday's Grade 1 Goodwood Stakes at the Oak Tree meeting at Santa Anita is considered an upset.

But there's also little question that it serves as an unsettling foreshadowing to the Breeders' Cup in November for anyone fielding an American horse in the Breeders' Cup Classic.

The 3-year-old Hernando colt was only Group 3-placed, with a recent conditioned-stakes win on an all-weather track at Wolverhampton to his name, when he departed Italian-born trainer Marco Botti's string at Newmarket in England to be stabled with Paddy Gallagher in California. Then Gitano Hernando at 18/1 upends a field of the West Coast's best in his first U.S. start for owners Team Valor International.

The upstart Brit-bred's victims included 4-year-old multiple Grade 1 winners Colonel John and Tiago, recent Pacific Classic S.-G1 winner Richard's Kid, this year's Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird, dual Grade 2 winner on the Cal circuit Informed, G2 winner and G1-placed Tres Borrachos, and Grade 3 winner and multiple-G1-placed Chocolate Candy.

Only the additions of a Well Armed -- who had surgery in August -- or the likes of Rail Trip and Einstein -- whose connections decided not to prep them again between the Pacific Classic and the Breeders' Cup -- could have made that group any more accomplished. And take note that fourth place in the Goodwood, as it did in the Pacific Classic, went to Parading, a former G2 winner on turf.

If Jess Jackson needed any more supporting evidence for his decision months ago to skip this Breeders' Cup with Rachel Alexandra, he certainly keeps getting it. It's too soon to know whether synthetic tracks everywhere are playing specifically in favor of turf-bred horses -- after all, Gitano Hernando also broke maiden at Wolverhampton and is now 3-for-3 on synthetic and just 1-for-4 on turf; he has not been equally successful on both surfaces. But it certainly seems that California's synthetic tracks can often tilt toward the turfers.

Gitano Hernando isn't nominated to the Breeders' Cup, and Team Valor would have to pay $250,000 to supplement him to the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic. But his win should have U.S. horses quaking in their Queen's Plates even if he isn't supplemented to racing's "world championships."

That's because Europe is sending much better than him to Santa Anita next month. Whether or not hands-down European champion Sea the Stars races in the Breeders' Cup Classic.

Rip Van Winkle, a Galileo 3-year-old who has won half of his eight starts including two straight British Group 1 races (and who has suffered three of his four losses in races won by Sea the Stars), is likely Breeders' Cup-bound in hopes of escaping Sea the Stars' shadow.

Conditioner Aidan O'Brien has confirmed that European 2-year-old champion of 2008 and four-time Group 1 winner Mastercraftsman -- a recent Group 3 winner in his first try on an all-weather track at Dundalk (in a B.C. Dirt Marathon win-and-you're-in) and also three times a victim of Sea the Stars in his four defeats -- is likewise headed to Santa Anita for the Classic.

Both Rip Van Winkle and Mastercraftsman were clearly superior 3-year-olds to Gitano Hernando in the U.K.

And, apparently the 12-furlong distance of the Breeders' Cup Turf has spooked the connections of Eclipse turf champion-contender Gio Ponti into a run at the Classic instead. Gio Ponti was upset by Interpatation in the mile-and-a-half Joe Hirsch Turf Classic at Belmont his last out, and his camp has decided not to attempt 12 furlongs again at Santa Anita.

Certainly America's best main-track horses will be there for the Classic, including those from the eastern half of the country such as Grade 1 winner Macho Again and three-times G1-winning 3-year-old Summer Bird. But neither has any promising synthetic track form to hang his bridle on. And we've just seen the Best of the West (minus Rail Trip) beaten over the Pro-Ride course by what previously had been an unequivocally second-tier Euro.

So America's hopefuls are stuck with a Breeders' Cup Classic in which the upper crust of likely contenders -- heaven help them if Sea the Stars shows, plus Rip Van Winkle, Mastercraftsman, Gio Ponti, even the aforementioned Einstein -- are all Grade- or Group 1 winners on grass. Which might mean unbeaten Zenyatta, though a synthetic-track monster in her own right, is better off stuck running against mares again in the Please-Change-the-Name-Back-to-Distaff.

And certainly it could be that all the main-track Yanks will be stuck looking forward to 2010 when the Classic gets back onto real, live dirt at Churchill Downs.

Rachel. Zenyatta. Belmont. ... And pigs fly.

Until proven wrong, I'm going to chalk this one down under the heading "I'll believe it when I see it." But the Daily Racing Form is reporting that the New York Racing Association is actively pursuing a sponsorship that would put a sizable chunk of change on the table in hopes of securing a race that draws both 3-year-old filly phenom Rachel Alexandra and unbeaten older mare Zenyatta.

DRF reports that a source inside NYRA claims the association is close to securing a sponsor that would most likely help bump the purse of the $600,000, Grade 1 Beldame Stakes at Belmont Park on Oct. 3 to $1 million as an enticement to the connections of both fabulous females.

Trouble is, money is just about meaningless to the connections of both horses. Rachel's principal owner, Jess Jackson, is the self-made-billionaire owner of Kendall-Jackson Wines. Zenyatta's owner, Jerry Moss, co-founded A&M Records with bandleader Herb Alpert and names horses in honor of his pal Sting. (Not the wrestler.)

The proposed $1 million purse of the Beldame is walking around money for these two.

Rather, at this stage of their lives, both Jackson and Moss are interested in one thing: Seeing their beloved horses win. A meeting in the Beldame might be fine for one of them -- Jackson, whose filly is training at Saratoga and has a huge win in the Mother Goose S.-G1 over the Belmont strip -- but makes little sense for Moss, trainer John Shirreffs and Zenyatta.

Though Shirreffs isn't yet rejecting the idea.

"We've talked to the owners, we've talked to the trainers. Nobody is saying 'no,'" the DRF's anonymous source said.

Shirreffs confirmed that the race is "something to consider."

"As far as going to New York, I'd love to take Zenyatta back there and have her seen there," Shirreffs told the Racing Form. "I'm from Long Island. One of my wishes in life is to spend some time at Belmont Park."

But, I figure, probably not now.

Mind you, it's now Shirreff's mare that has more reason to need this race. There was a time when I thought Rachel's connections would blink first in the staring match between these two camps; that she'd have to track down and beat Zenyatta to win any championship other than 3-year-old filly. But that was before Jackson sent his filly off for a second time hunting colts. Now her trophy room includes first-place hardware from both the Preakness and Haskell, and the pelts of the two other 3-year-old classic winners this season, Mine That Bird (Kentucky Derby) and Summer Bird (Belmont Stakes).

Meanwhile, Zenyatta has run her lifetime mark to a flawless 12-for-12 (Rachel was not unbeaten at 2), but hasn't left California in doing it and is coming off the closest call in her life; winning by a head in a photo over Anabaa's Creation in the Clement L. Hirsch-G1.

By winning a Triple Crown race and beating the boys twice, Rachel Alexandra is the biggest sensation in all of American racing this season. Zenyatta by comparison is the most dominant horse on the West Coast. As a friend pointed out in a discussion recently, when his co-workers were asked about racing, even those who didn't follow the sport knew full-well about Rachel Alexandra. Nobody had a clue who Zenyatta was.

Lucky for Zenyatta and her connections, then, that the clueless don't vote for Eclipse Awards. (Though your opinions may vary.)

Especially because of the relative lack of stars in the male ranks, I believe that either of these fine females could still be horse of the year. Neither is more than two wins away.

It's how best to get there that matters.

Jackson has already said -- and said, and said -- that Rachel will not run in the Breeders' Cup on Pro-Ride at Santa Anita, where his champion Curlin struggled home fourth in the Breeders' Cup Classic of 2008. Usually ducking the Breeders' Cup would make it very hard to win a championship, but Rachel has been so dominant this year, even against males, that she's given herself a fighting chance.

I'm not sure that beating 3-year-old colts and geldings again in the Travers S.-G1 is her best bet on the road to Horse of the Year, but she could always run against older males in the Grade 1 Woodward at Saratoga on Sept. 5. Possible starters for that race include Grade 1 winner Macho Again and G2 winners such as Asiatic Boy, Arson Squad and Smooth Air. And no female has ever won the Woodward. So if Rachel notches yet another historic win, in that company -- perhaps even scaring some of those gentlemen off -- she could probably be shut down for the season by Jackson and trainer Steve Asmussen and still be Horse of the Year. Running and winning in the Beldame about a month later would just add a second, sweet layer of icing to the cake.

But for Zenyatta, does winning Horse of the Year require beating Rachel? Well, not if somebody else does it for her.

Yes, the best way for Zenyatta to overtake Rachel in the race for the top title would be to beat her head-to-head. But the Beldame is not a race that plays in Zenyatta's favor.

Shirreffs, who planned to keep his mare in California all year leading up to the Breeders' Cup, would have to take her off the West Coast synthetics (where she's usually a monster) and ship her thousands of miles east to run on plain dirt, at a track where Rachel has already set records. The only advantage left for Zenyatta would be her age and physical maturity, but even experience is now on Rachel's side; though only 3, she's run one more race than Zenyatta in her life (13 vs. 12) and she knows what it's like to lose and seems to have decided she'd rather never do it again, thank you.

Shirreffs says Question 1 for Team Zenyatta regarding the Beldame is "does it fit into the Breeders' Cup schedule?" At this stage of the season, if I were them, I think it doesn't. Shirreffs can instead point Zenyatta to the Grade 1, $300,000 Lady's Secret at Santa Anita's Oak Tree meeting on Oct. 10, hopefully win with a little more cushion than in the Hirsch, and stay put for the Nov. 7-8 Breeders' Cup at the same track.

Provided she comes out of the Lady's Secret with a win -- and especially if Rachel runs against males again in either the Travers or Woodward and loses -- then Moss and Shirreffs can decide whether to let Zenyatta try to repeat in the Breeders' Cup Ladies Classic, which very well might not be enough to win her Horse of the Year, even at 14-for-14 lifetime, or to take on males herself in the Classic at 10 furlongs, a distance she's never raced. Winning the latter, coupled with a Rachel Alexandra loss, and Zenyatta indeed could be Horse of the Year, not just champion older female.

Yes, an aggressive, proactive Moss and Shirreffs might go after Rachel at Belmont in the Beldame. But an aggressive Zenyatta camp wouldn't have staked out an all-Cali 2009 schedule in the first place for an unbeaten defending female champion.

And for wealthy men more concerned with the win/loss record than the size of the winner's check, a $400,000 bump in the purse of the Beldame doesn't seem likely to make them any less conservative now.

Kudos to a Technicolor Breeders' Cup

I've been critical of the Breeders' Cup for a number of reasons, most notably the decision to stage consecutive meetings on the synthetic surface at Santa Anita Park and its laying the potential groundwork for a withdrawal from some of the series' recently added races, particularly the Breeders' Cup Marathon.

But a comparatively small decision announced Tuesday by the Breeders' Cup gets a big thumbs-up from me.

This year, the horses will race with the standard U.S. system of color-coded saddle cloths, rather than all in the now-familiar Breeders' Cup purple.

Huzzah!

The decision was reached after the Breeders' Cup consulted with its Fan Advisory Council and through the input of horseplayers across the U.S. and Canada. And it's a great move.

I realize that in certain major races (usually due to a corporate sponsorship) and in many foreign jurisdictions, single-color saddle towels are frequently used. But I greatly prefer the U.S. system -- red saddle cloth for the No. 1, white for No. 2, blue for No. 3, etc. -- because it takes a field full of brown and red horses (with the occasional gray) and makes every one of them "a horse of a different color," even at a distance.

I have a pretty good set of eyes, but as a bettor, fan or even an owner it can be difficult to follow "your" horse through the field, despite the fact that the jockeys are wearing silks and caps in the connections' colors.

The distinctive block of defining color that each different saddle cloth provides gives all observers the best opportunity to keep up with the progress of each horse in the race, from gate to wire.

Messers. Zito and LaPenta: Set Da' Tara free to do what he does best

Da' Tara's still at it -- knocking on the door of clearing the non-winners of three lifetime condition, that is.

I'd wager a number of readers haven't heard, nor much cared, about the 2008 Belmont Stakes champion since that day, when he paid $79 on that June afternoon as the shocking long-shot who collected the big check as Big Brown traded in his Triple Crown for one of the Burger King variety. But the colt is back and trying to fight his way back to the top, or at least out of the middle. Yet with three seconds in three races at age 4 -- including one going a mile Sunday when beaten 7 1/2 at Belmont -- he just can't quite get there.

It's a wonder Da' Tara wasn't a bigger price on Belmont Day 2008. He'd only won a single race in his life, albeit at first asking in maiden special company on Jan. 5, 2008, at Gulfstream Park. He was third in a Gulfstream allowance and then owner Robert V. LaPenta and trainer Nick Zito tossed him in over his head to watch him come home ninth in the Florida Derby-G1 behind what was then a seemingly unbeatable Big Brown.

Sticking with stakes company, Da' Tara was fifth in the Derby Trial at Churchill (won by eventual G1 winner Macho Again) a week prior to the 2008 Kentucky Derby, which also turned into a Big Brown romp. He followed Big Brown to Pimlico two weeks later and notched a game second-place finish in the Barbaro Stakes (formerly the Sir Barton) on the undercard of Big Brown's Preakness freakshow.

So, really, who'd fully have expected Da' Tara to spring the Belmont upset? Certainly he's well-bred, by twice-champion Tiznow out of Torchera, one of four stakes-caliber Pirate's Bounty foals out of multiple stakes winner Kaylem Ho (Salem-Kay Ho, by Quid Pro Quo) -- a blacktype quartet that included Grade 1 winner Private Persuasion (1995 Vanity H.).

But as Ann Ferland reminds me, no tail-male descendant of the great Man O' War had won an American classic since his own son War Admiral took the Triple Crown in 1934. And coming into the Belmont, Da' Tara wasn't even the most accomplished direct descendant of the mare Kaylem Ho in the race -- that was Denis of Cork, the Harlan's Holiday colt who had won the Grade 3 Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn Park and finished third in the Derby behind Big Brown and the ill-fated filly Eight Belles. Kaylem Ho, second dam to Da' Tara, is third dam to Denis of Cork.

Still, when Big Brown cashed it in early under Kent Desormeaux and the scramble was on to see who picked up the loose change, the Belmont Stakes honors went to Alan Garcia and his long-shot charge, Da' Tara.

So where has Da' Tara gone from there? Lots of places and nowhere, really.

Da' Tara resurfaced later in 2008 at Saratoga for the Jim Dandy S.-G2, finishing seventh behind an old nemesis, Macho Again. About a month later, he ran fifth in a Travers S.-G1 known for its incredible photo finish -- won by fellow Tiznow colt Colonel John by the hairs of his muzzle over Mambo in Seattle.

A sixth-place finish in a sloppy Jerome H.-G2 at Belmont's fall meet prompted a drop in class for Da' Tara (and a jockey change to John Velazquez somewhere along the line) but he was not quite up to the task back at Churchill, finishing third in an optional-claimer.

A couple of months off resulted in an anticipated return to the track in February back where Da' Tara broke maiden, at Gulfstream Park, on the Fountain of Youth Undercard. But to pilfer a NASCAR term, Da' Tara has been the first loser in every race he's run this year, including his closing, but distant, runner-up performance back under Garcia at Belmont on Sunday.

So what next?

Since I'm apparently in the unsolicited advice-dispensing business these days, I have a suggestion for Messers. LaPenta and Zito: Send Da' Tara back to stakes company.

That probably sounds looney, but you haven't read the half of it yet. I want to see him on the grass next month at Saratoga. I believe the John's Call Stakes beckons on a Friday, Aug. 7.

The sixth running of the John's Call, per the condition book a $70,000-added race, is slated for a mile and five-eighths over the Saratoga lawn. It has the added benefit of being restricted to horses that haven't won a graded-stakes race in 2009, so there shouldn't be any real turf monsters in the field. Though NYRA reserves the right to move the race to the main track (apparently regardless whether weather's the issue), Da' Tara shouldn't bat an eyelash at that possibility, and if it stays on the grass, the condition book suggests he stands to benefit from some serious breaks in the weights due to having no prior earnings on turf.

Last year, only eight horses went to post, so Da' Tara likely wouldn't have to fear being closed out because of that lack of turf earnings (which are the tie-breaker in case of over-subscription). In the 2008 renewal, Just As Well, who was third in an optional-claimer in his "prep" for the race, was sent off as the 2-1 favorite in his stakes debut. Though he's gone on to be turf-G1-placed at age 6 in 2009, he didn't win on this day; he didn't even hit the board. Victory went to Summer Patriot, his first and only stakes triumph (though he is also G1-placed on grass). Second went to Venezuelan import Taconeo and third to Codeword, who is G3-placed at a mile but has never won a stakes.

Time for the race -- as it has been for all four prior runnings to take place at 13f on grass (Auguri won the John's Call at 9.5f on dirt in 2004) -- was a fairly pedestrian 2:42.50. Da' Tara's 2:29.65 Belmont victory was far from fleet, but the list of horses that have won the Test of the Champion in 2:29 or slower is lengthy and star-studded (including Seattle Slew's 2:29 3/5) and 2:29 and change is roughly par for finishing 13 furlongs in around 2:42, which as noted could win the John's Call.

I don't know whether Zito has ever tried to work Da' Tara over a turf course, but I know the horse hasn't raced over one. And the one thing we know about the colt is that distance, at least by American standards, is not a limitation. Tiznow is throwing plenty of classic-distance horses, not to mention at least three graded-stakes winners on grass -- Tizaqueena, Tizfiz and Tizdejavu. And considering Da' Tara's dam line produced a 1-2 finish in the Belmont last year at a mile and a half, I'm going to assume the extra 660 feet of the John's Call won't be Da' Tara's undoing.

I think your horse fits in the race, Nick and Bob, and to prove it, I'm willing to pay the early nomination fee on your behalf, provided you'll pay the $1,000 to pass the gate. ... O.K., I know there's no fee for nominations (if they're on time, it's $200 supplemental). But you also get a $750 rebate on the one-grand starter's fee provided the horse does actually run in the race. And isn't $250 an insignificant amount to risk? ... I mean, by your bankroll's standards?

If Da' Tara doesn't like the turf, so be it; he hasn't won his last seven races anyway. If he can merely maintain his runner-up streak for 2009, it's still a good payday and an extra spot of black type on his (potentially foreign-market) stallion resume that sure could use it. ... The Belmont alone isn't much of a selling point for a stud career these days.

But if he does take to the grass -- and I truly believe that isn't out of the question -- Da' Tara just might win that race. And then we have even bigger plans.

Winning the John's Call would set the stage for a potential entry in the Breeders' Cup ... the Marathon, that is. The race has been extended this year to 14 furlongs (provided they don't start canceling races now) which, Messers. Zito and LaPenta, could help play into your boy's hands. And unlike so many eastern-third-based American horses, Da' Tara shouldn't run and hide from the Pro-Ride at Santa Anita, either. Aside from Da' Tara himself and champion juvenile filly Folklore, each of Tiznow's other Grade 1 winners in his still-young stud career have won at least one of their G1s on SoCal synthetics: Well Armed (Goodwood S.); the aforementioned Colonel John (Santa Anita Derby); and Tough Tiz's Sis (Lady's Secret S.).

Millionairess Bear Now has two G3 wins over different synthetic tracks. Slew's Tizzy won the Coolmore Lexington S.-G2 on Keeneland's Polytrack and set a 9-furlong course record over the all-weather surface at Hollywood Park. Ex-claimer Informed added a G2 win over synthetics for Tiznow recently by taking the Californian at Hollywood.

Since extremely talented horses and their connections are donning garlic necklaces and holding out crosses at arm's length at the notion of racing over Pro-Ride during the Breeders' Cup -- complaining that the "plastic" surface favors European invaders and turf horses -- why not find out right now whether Da' Tara is one of those who can handle the grass? ... Even if he can't, or doesn't like it quite as well as the main track, I wouldn't write off the Marathon completely because of the fine synthetic form so many Tiznows have displayed.

The Breeders' Cup Marathon, though over the main track, indeed was a haven for Euros and turf horses at Santa Anita last year. Irish-shipper Muhannak (with no career graded blacktype) won it, second went to ex-claimer and Cal-based G3 turf winner Church Service, and finishing third was Big Booster, previously winner of the San Juan Capistrano-G2 at 14f on turf.

So how about it, Bob and Nick?

You have a Grade 1-winning distance horse on your hands. And he suffers from seconditis at shorter circuits (five of his other 14 starts lifetime, plus the MSW win and two thirds). But if Da' Tara can win the John's Call and be pointed to the Breeders' Cup, there are a half-dozen potential preps to test him again and keep him sharp between the two -- including the all-weather-track Turfway Park Fall Championship, which is a win-and-you're-in for the Marathon.

Allow the guy do what thus far he's done best -- turn Da' Tara out and let him run all day.

You might even decide that this distance racing thing is pretty cool, something I have a hunch your horse already has figured out for himself.

Breeders' Cup cuts would leave series incomplete

With new board members in place, the Breeders' Cup is considering cutting back in the future on its two-day slate of 14 races, suggesting that having so many divisions is just too darned hard to keep up with, for fans and for the series.

The series of win-and-you're-in races and other Breeders' Cup-affiliated stakes also would be culled in the process.

"The concern is, how do we lead into 14 different races, in 14 different divisions," Greg Avioli, CEO of the Breeders' Cup, told The Daily Racing Form. "It's very difficult to do with 14 divisions."

I find myself asking this a lot of the higher-ups in racing's hierarchy, but are they serious?

For me this is just the latest piece of evidence in the growing case that horse racing is being run by people who have forgotten what they're marketing, how to market it, or even to whom they should be marketing.

Ray Paulick was there to blog the whole thing and he seems to like what was said. And the notion of having a strategic plan is well and good. But I'm rarely one to back the concept of addition by subtraction.

Any horse racing fan -- even neophytes -- should be able to grasp that a true championship day of racing will have events for 2-year-olds and for older horses, on dirt (or some facsimile thereof) and on turf, at distances ranging from short, to medium, to long and very long. And, that those races will be held for both males and females.

Done right, that necessitates at least 14 divisions.

Juveniles at present are handed four races: colts and fillies, dirt and turf, all around two turns. There are no short races for 2-year-olds at the Breeders' Cup. And that still leaves only 10 more races over the two days for older horses, male and female.

With an open mile race on both dirt and turf, open dirt and turf sprints, plus the Breeders' Cup Classic, the Breeders' Cup Turf and the new Marathon (lengthened to a more serious distance this year at 14 furlongs), just three races are carded strictly for older females; a dirt sprint, the Don't Call It A Distaff and the Filly & Mare Turf.

Economics aside -- the quality and quantity of racing only being considered -- the smartest move the Breeders' Cup has made in recent memory was the addition of new races to support unrepresented divisions, such as the turf juveniles, sprinting females and horses whose pedigrees faintly hearken to the day when the Jockey Club Gold Cup was run at two miles. (The BC has fouled up the win-and-your in schedule, and by putting all the filly and mare races on Friday, but those are different blog posts.)

For the Breeders' Cup to go back on that commendable decision to serve all breeders and their horses, not to mention fans of distance and turf racing, and to ax races when they only just started to get it right, would be a huge mistake.

But that seems to be the direction the Breeders' Cup is headed. Last summer, the organization pegged Satish Sanan -- board member and owner of Padua Stables -- to lead a team in creating a new strategic plan. Work on the strategy began in January, aided by William Field, a British-based consultant for Value Partners, a management consulting firm.

The strategic plan for the future appears to have been to set up a rear-guard action and plot a retreat -- but a withdrawal so grand that the Breeders' Cup will become "the most prestigious and popular competition in world racing," according to Field.

Let's face it, competition for that title isn't very widespread. Aside from the historic Royal Ascot meeting -- where most American owners and trainers not named Wesley Ward fear to tread -- and Dubai World Cup day, exactly which other events are vying for the title of "most prestigious and popular competition in world racing?"

And considering Sheikh Mohammed has the bucks to drop £45 million on a 3,300-acre British farm with 39 houses, primarily to "use the grounds for shooting" -- and in six months will open the most spectacular new racetrack in the world -- it would seem the Breeders' Cup is already down in the count 0-and-2.

What the Breeders' Cup has going for it that nobody else can touch is the fundamental truth that around the world almost everybody who owns a racehorse -- Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum included -- wants to win big races on American soil. Even if only to win the competition of "us" vs. "them." Sure, they have marquee events in their own countries, and for most of the season those races keep the average overseas connections from shipping here to race. (Of course, Sheikh Mohammed has horses everywhere, all the time.)

But on Breeders' Cup weekend, they're all here, almost anyone who thinks his or her horse has a prayer of winning anything.

Field, the British consultant, concedes that's what it should be all about.

"The important thing is that the event in November is regarded as the event (horse owners) want to come to and there is nothing more that they would treasure than to win a race there," Field said.

So keep giving them races to win.

The fewer races, the fewer opportunities for horse owners to achieve that dream of a Breeders' Cup horse or -- praise be -- a Breeders' Cup champion. And, the fewer people who will be willing to make a downpayment on what for 99.99 percent of us is a pipe dream.

Breeders' Cup officials say the series will run a $6 million deficit this year, on total estimated expenses of $50 million. Of those expenses, $30.5 million is committed to purse outlays. (The Dubai World Cup offers $21.25 million in purses for just seven races and you can expect that to escalate at Meydan.)

Breeders' Cup expects foal nomination fee collections in 2009 to drop to $16 million from a total of $20 million in 2008; that's $4 million of the deficit in itself. But even mentioning the possibility of scaling back the number of races (not just on Breeders' Cup day, but the series' lower-level races nationwide throughout the year, races in which lesser connections have more of a chance) will only further discourage smaller breeders and stallion-owners from paying to nominate -- starting now, and not just when the cuts actually happen.

Face it -- fewer opportunities to win equals fewer people willing to pay the price of admission. I for one was thrilled with the prospect of the Marathon, hoping that as a small breeder it might be my best chance to someday have a Breeders' Cup horse without spending a mint for a fashionable sire who throws million-dollar 2-year-olds.

In the end -- what Breeders' Cup management doesn't even seem to get -- is that it isn't just about the money. It's about the dream. The snowball's chance. The faintest glimmer of hope for getting a horse to a Breeders' Cup race, even if it's "just" the $1 million Turf Sprint or the paltry $500,000 Marathon.

Of course, maybe it isn't about that if you're a millionaire, as I presume the preponderance of board members are, probably several times over. Maybe if you're in that financial echelon, the Breeders' Cup Classic isn't worth winning if it isn't a $5 million race.

But if money were the sole reason for running, wouldn't Jess Jackson be content to let Rachel Alexandra take a bite off that $2 million Ladies Classic apple, even if it's only around $500 large for second place to Zenyatta? Why does she run for the 60 percent winner's share of $300,000 in the Mother Goose, yet Jackson swears his filly will skip the Breeders' Cup at many times the financial reward because it will be run (for the second straight year) on Santa Anita's Pro-Ride surface, which he thinks puts Rachel at a disadvantage?

Seems to him it's more about the winning.

If money were the primary reason for sending a horse the Breeders' Cup, would the asking price reportedly being bandied about for a gelded Mine That Bird be in the vicinity of $4 million, a third more than the Kentucky Derby winner could even hope to earn from the Classic?

Seems as though posing for the win photo after a Breeders' Cup race is prize enough.

Obviously money makes the world go around, and perhaps no industry is more acutely aware of that than the horse business, where the yearling auctions are broadcast live on the Web and covered as extensively as some college football bowl games. Even so, the prices being paid by the high-end buyers don't correspond in the slightest with what the horse is likely ever to earn back at the track.

I mean, $16.7 million for The Green Monkey?

Sure, the breeding side of the business is where colt-buyers in particular hope to recoup their investment, via sky-high syndication deals.

But if you don't realize that the adventure between that sale purchase and the breeding shed -- the heady prospects of following your horse through 2-year-old maiden-breakers and stakes like the Hopeful and the Champagne, to the Derby Trail, to Churchill on the first Saturday in May, to Saratoga and Del Mar in the summer, to the Breeders' Cup and potentially seasons beyond -- is really what those buyers are purchasing for hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars, then you have lost sight of what horse racing is all about.

It's hard to imagine that people so deeply involved in the sport could be so oblivious to its aura, but maybe they're too close to the game. Could be they've been around it too long, particularly those who are perennially at its pinnacle. Perhaps the spotlight is bright enough on the sport that the two-way mirrored windows of its ivory towers allow us to see in, but blind the people who run the game to the outside world.

Maybe they really don't know anymore what they're marketing, how to market it, or even to whom it must be marketed.

What you're selling, Breeders' Cup, is what every red-blooded American wants from his life and, in racing, what every horseman worldwide pines for -- just a chance. An opportunity to compete against the best and to show what he's got. An inkling that maybe, just maybe, his horse is in with a shot.

Every race cut from the schedule kills that dream not just for somebody somewhere, but for dozens and hundreds of somebodies everywhere.

I understand that in the eyes of some -- horsemen and fans alike -- not all of the current card's 14 races are created equal. It's O.K. that the Breeders' Cup Marathon will never carry the purse of the Classic. But the race needs to be there as the championship, the season's ultimate goal, for the type of horses it fits. It isn't the biggest race of Breeders' Cup weekend, but it's the biggest race of the year for them.

For the Breeders' Cup to be the championship thoroughbred racing event worldwide, there must be a race for every genre of racehorse: juveniles and elders, male and female, main track and turf, from short distances to the very long.

Anything less must be graded incomplete.

Barbaro's baby brother could be Va. Derby-bound

If you didn't have enough reason to watch and care about the July 18 Virginia Derby-G2 at Colonial Downs, the Virginia Thoroughbred Association's blog states that Nicanor -- 3-year-old brother of the brilliant but ill-fated Barbaro -- has been pointed to the race by trainer Michael Matz.

Barbaro, as anyone not living under a rock (and a few who have been) would know was the unbeaten champion of the Kentucky Derby in 2007, but suffered a grievous injury in the early stages of the Preakness Stakes and was retired to fight for his life. He died more than eight months later, in January 2007, at the University of Pennsylvania Veterinary School's New Bolton Center, where he had been treated ever since breaking his leg in the Preakness.

Nicanor started his career with three races on the dirt without winning, but rocketed to impressive victories on the grass in his next two starts. That's unsurprising, considering Barbaro broke his maiden and was a graded-stakes winner on turf before switching to the main track for the Derby trail. I happen to believe that, had he lived to prove it and been given future races on the lawn, Barabro would've been known as being at least as good a grass horse as he was a dirt-runner and probably better.

The Virginia Derby has become one of the best turf races in the country apart from the Breeders' Cup, and should soon have earned recognition as a Grade 1 race. It's last five winners are Gio Ponti, Red Giant, Go Between, English Channel and Kitten's Joy, all went on to be Grade 1 winners, the latter pair champions. Colonial Downs is an absolutely beautiful, pastoral place to visit and it's quite near Colonial Williamsburg and not too far from Virginia Beach for those looking to make a week of things.

And this year, the Virginia Derby could feature Nicanor.

I'm scheduled to work that Saturday at home North Carolina. ... Crud!

But now what's your excuse for not going?

What did Monday's Jerry do with Saturday's Jerry?

Will the real Jerry Moss please stand up? Or at least stop singing different tunes?

Moss, founder of A&M Records and owner of the most-accomplished older mare in America, Zenyatta, on Saturday morning appeared on a satellite radio racing program, "Down The Stretch." During an interview, Moss said that since it appears stellar 3-year-old filly Rachel Alexandra won't be coming to the Breeders' Cup to face his mare, then his mare would just go on the road to find that filly.

"There's a good chance," Moss said Saturday, that Zenyatta would seek out Rachel, most likely at an eastern racetrack on a conventional dirt surface.

By Monday, Moss was backpedaling so quickly that the only way to make out his original statement now might be to run the tape in reverse and listen for it between the repeated phrases of "turn me on, dead man ..."

"We'd love to meet Rachel Alexandra, and I'm sorry she apparently isn't coming to the Breeders' Cup," Moss said in an interview with The Blood-Horse. "... As owners, we plan for the Breeders' Cup. That is where championships are supposed to be resolved. My brain is fighting my heart on this, because I'd like to give Zenyatta every chance to remove any doubts about her place in history, and Rachel Alexandra would be a challenge. ... We'd like to meet her, but we don't want to swerve out of our program, because we still have the Breeders' Cup foremost in our sights."

Sounds like somebody got a lecture from his trainer, John Shirreffs, after Saturday's satellite radio interview.

Shirreffs had said weeks ago that Zenyatta was going nowhere this summer, not in the sense that she wouldn't be running and winning races, only that she'd be running and winning them all on synthetic surfaces in Southern California.

Since Rachel's principal owner, Jess Jackson, has said he doesn't want his filly running "on plastic" (even though she has a synthetic surface victory to her credit), it appears the leading 3-year-old filly in the country will not be Breeders' Cup-bound. For the second straight year, the Cup will be run at Santa Anita, which has a Pro-Ride synthetic surface. Jackson, whose superstar and champion Curlin flopped in the Breeders' Cup at Santa Anita last year, says he isn't going back.

Moss on Monday appeared to end any notion that Zenyatta might face Rachel at Saratoga in the Go For Wand on Aug. 2, the Personal Ensign on Aug. 30 or at Belmont in the Oct. 3 Beldame. No mention was made at The Blood-Horse of the $1 million, Grade 2 Delaware Handicap coming up July 19, but since that race would be a deviation from Shirreffs' ultra-conservative plan, one has to figure it's out, too.

Moss suggested that perhaps his unbeaten mare -- who won her 11th in as many tries by taking the Vanity Handicap Saturday -- and the outstanding Rachel Alexandra might be able to meet post-Breeders' Cup. But he bellyached about the detention barn at Belmont ("We had a very bad experience with Giacomo going to the dention barn at Belmont ... he went nuts.") and talked like he was scared of running Zenyatta at Saratoga because the "tight turns would compromise Zenyatta given her running style of coming wide from behind."

"Every venue has its idiosyncracies that are risky," Moss said.

So there it is. What looked like a possibility Saturday -- that Moss would be sporting enough to send Zenyatta out to meet Rachel even if Jackson isn't sporting enough to have Rachel attend the Breeders' Cup -- seems an impossibility today. Unless the two meet somewhere after the Breeders' Cup, in the six or weeks or so remaining before Zenyatta is almost certain to be retired to the breeding shed. And, pardon my asking, but exactly what suitable race remains on the calendar after racing's festival of festivals, the Breeders' Cup, which is intended to all but close out the season.

Sadly, much of Moss' reversal appears to hinge on the notion that putting Zenyatta in any position other than a race hand-picked to play to her every strength is "risky" -- not to the mare's health, mind you, but simply to her chances of staying unbeaten.

Moss and Jackson have invested so much in this sport, where risk is inherent with every powerful stride. It's disappointing to see them both become so protectionist now regarding their greatest investments, Zenyatta and Rachel, both of whom were conceived, foaled and nurtured to race.

Just apparently not to race against each other.

With all others fleeing Rachel, Zenyatta might fill void

Last week, it looked for all the world like a showdown between unbeaten 5-year-old mare Zenyatta and seemingly world-beating 3-year-old filly Rachel Alexandra might never happen.

Weeks ago, trainer John Shirreffs said Zenyatta would be staying in California all the way through the Breeders' Cup at Santa Anita. And this week, Jess Jackson of Stonestreet Stables, primary owner of Rachel Alexandra, said his filly would be skipping the Breeders' Cup rather than run on the "plastic" Pro-Ride surface in California.

Collision averted. Regrettably.

But on Saturday morning, even before Zenyatta carried 129 pounds in defending her title in Hollywood Park's Grade 1 Vanity Handicap and Rachel set stakes records for time and margin of victory in the Mother Goose S.-G1 at Belmont Park, Zenyatta's owner, Jerry Moss, said his desire for his mare to be named Horse of the Year (she lost out to Jackson's Curlin in 2008) might well send her on the road to hunt down the upstart Rachel.

"There's a good chance," that Zenyatta would leave California despite Shirreffs' earlier statements, Moss said in an interview during the program "Down the Stretch" on XM Satellite Radio, reported by The Daily Racing Form. "... If the two horses are ready and at the top of their form, I would very much like to see a race between the two of them."

Wouldn't we all?

Sending his senior Zenyatta out to meet Jackson's saucy sophomore is something Moss doesn't exactly have to do. I've written that I believe Rachel needs to beat Zenyatta -- not just rest her laurels on a gutsy Preakness win over males or even beat boys again in the Haskell or Travers -- if Jackson wants her to be Horse of the Year. It would be a weak link in Rachel's case for the title to leave a lifetime-unbeaten Zenyatta with a pair of Breeders' Cup victories on the table, unchallenged. No matter how good Rachel has looked -- and there isn't a superlative that fits her at the moment -- Zenyatta seemed to be in the position of strength so far as dictating where, when and whether a clash of the two female titans would take place.

Meanwhile Rachel's ridiculous run Saturday, while it added another Grade 1 victory and $270,000 earned to her resume, actually turned up the pressure a bit on Jackson. Only two other 3-year-old fillies showed up to race: Edward P. Evans' Malibu Prayer, who finished second beaten 19 1/4 lengths; and Godolphin's Flashing, who was third beaten roughly 32. The connections of Don't Forget Gil and Hopeful Image scratched them out Saturday morning due to "elevated temperatures."

Rachel Alexandra set records for the Mother Goose for time when run at 9 furlongs, 1:46.33 (besting Lakeway's 1:46.58 in 1994), and margin of victory (shattering the 13 1/2-length margin set in 1975 by the sublime Ruffian).

And that presents a conundrum for Jackson and Rachel's trainer, Steve Asmussen, when considering where Rachel goes next. Earlier in the week, while ruling out the Breeders' Cup this fall, Jackson listed several potential "next starts" for Rachel after the Mother Goose.

If she enters the Coaching Club American Oaks-G1 at Belmont on July 25 or the Aug. 22 Alabama S.-G1 at Saratoga -- each restricted to 3-year-old fillies -- either might become a walkover at the rate fillies are fleeing Rachel. She could face colts and geldings again in the Aug. 2 Haskell Invitational H.-G1 at Monmouth or the Aug. 29 Travers S.-G1 at Saratoga. Both would be much bigger challenges.

But management of one Mid-Atlantic track has to be drooling over the prospects that perhaps both top females will decide to muss-up their hair and lipstick in a donnybrook at their own Delaware Park on July 19. The Delaware Handicap is but a Grade 2 race, yet the purse this year has been set at $1 million. That's considerably more cash than either of the Grade 1 opportunities at Saratoga for a Zenyatta vs. Rachel Showdown, the $300,000 Go For Wand on Aug. 2 or the $400,000 Personal Ensign on Aug. 29.

Both girls have earned plenty of G1 blacktype. Beating the other one -- whether in a Grade 1 race or a 400-yard dash at Los Alamitos -- is just about all that matters now.

I think the Personal Ensign is least likely. For Zenyatta particularly, who could win and then go home (or lose and do the same to recuperate in time for the Breeders' Cup) I think the earlier a collision with Rachel, the better. Shirreffs has hinted he doesn't necessarily want Zenyatta going 10 furlongs, so asking her to cover an untried distance, on conventional dirt (over which she's only raced once), while also making the sporting gesture of shipping cross-country to where Rachel is training at The Spa, is one concession too many for the California connections.

With the Go For Wand being the least lucrative matchup (not that either camp is hurting for cash), the Delaware Handicap begins to look even more attractive. It's mile-and-a-sixteenth course is Zenyatta's most-frequently raced distance (six of her nine graded wins), and the slightly shorter distance and huge purse (meaning a hundred-grand for third) might help attract a few more mares to the party than the 9 furlongs of the Go For Wand, which went off with only six entries last year when champion Ginger Punch cast a long shadow over the entry box.

While I'm wanting to see Zenyatta vs. Rachel, I'm not asking for a one-on-one race. And a deep-closer like Zenyatta is going to want some pace to run at, which I think she'll more likely get with a few more mares in the mix and a shorter distance to travel. Plus, from Zenyatta's perspective, at least the Delaware Handicap would require Rachel to be vanned away from Saratoga, where she'll be training the next few months.

It makes me wonder, though, whether Saratoga might try to up the ante. "Back in the day," namely when tracks were trying to land the Seabiscuit-War Admiral match, bids came in from across the country. Might the New York Racing Association and Saratoga be able to scrounge up a title sponsor to contribute a huge chunk of change and bump the Go For Wand's purse to match Delaware's bankroll?

After all, a title sponsor for this race is going to get plenty of attention. If Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra are nominated to the same race, all eyes will be on that venue from the moment the showdown is announced until at least a day or two after the dust has settled.