History in the making, and the ducking

You win some, you lose some. And apparently when phenomenal filly Rachel Alexandra is declared a probable for a Grade 1 race never before won by a female, you gain one and might lose one among the older male horses that had been pointed toward the race.

Steve Asmussen, trainer of Rachel Alexandra, revealed on Monday that she would bypass the Travers S.-G1 and a third shot at 3-year-old males in favor of facing those boys' elders in the Woodward S.-G1. Both races are at Saratoga. The Woodward has never been won by a filly or mare.

The announcement spurred West Point Thoroughbreds to point its Grade 1-winning 4-year-old colt, Macho Again, toward the Woodward, as well. He had been training at Churchill Downs since a second place finish in the Whitney H.-G1 and initially was to skip the Woodward in favor of a little extra rest before the Oct. 3 Jockey Club Gold Cup-G1 back at Belmont.

That was great news for race fans, some of whom had actually suggested Rachel would be pointed toward a race -- reminder, a race never won by a filly -- as a way of ducking competition. Macho Again would have made the Woodward about as tough a field as Rachel could have been expected to face from this year's handicap division, considering Einstein was already bound for the Pacific Classic at Del Mar to face the best of the West.

But trainer Kiaran McLaughlin might make the opposite choice for his previously Woodward-bound horse.

McLaughlin said he contacted Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa al Maktoum, the owner of his 6-year-old Grade 2 winner, Asiatic Boy, about ducking Rachel and crossing the country to race in the Pacific Classic instead of Saratoga's Woodward, to which the horse had previously been pointed.

"I sent an e-mail overseas to talk to the owner and racing officials," McLaughlin told The Blood-Horse, adding that it isn't definite his horse will dodge a meeting with Rachel. The nomination to the Pacific Classic, which is run a day after the Woodward, merely gives Asiatic Boy another option.

"Nobody really wants to face Rachel Alexandra these days," said McLaughlin, which must come as news to the nobodies at West Point, who decided to alter plans and face Rachel rather than lay out of a race that hadn't been on their horse's schedule.

McLaughlin said giving Rachel an eight-pound break -- which she'll receive in the Woodward for being a 3-year-old and a filly -- might just be too much. Calling Rachel "great," a word he says is used too often but is appropriate in her case, McLaughlin flatly said he wanted no part of her. Wherever her principal owner Jess Jackson might send her. Ever.

"She's beat everybody that's gotten in the gate with her this year. Luckily, I haven't gotten in the gate with her and don't look forward to getting in the gate with her with Asiatic Boy," McLaughlin said. "... (S)he's great for the sport, and it's nice that Mr. Jackson chose some of these spots to show how great she is. He said he's hoping to run her next year as a 4-year-old, and that's nice to hear, but I don't look forward to running against her ever, with anything."

That might make perfect sense from a let's-don't-get-our-horse-beat-ever angle. But for McLaughlin to laud Rachel Alexandra as "great for the sport" and applaud Jackson for spotting her against males to prove her worth -- then tell us not to count on him and his horses to be a part of what's "great for the sport" -- leaves me disappointed in a trainer I normally find easy to root for.

I hope the Sheikh and trainer McLaughlin decide to keep Asiatic Boy in the East and face Rachel. If so, good luck to them.

If not, and if Rachel does happen to lose the Woodward, I hope it's Macho Again who proves to have been the man for the job.

Maybe West Point -- which sells and manages racehorse partnerships -- simply sees a Woodward with Rachel as too big a marketing opportunity to miss, win or lose. But winning would be a just reward for seeing history about to be made and choosing to be a part of it by running in, rather than from, the race.

Bummer, no 'Bird' rematch in Travers

It probably isn't the biggest shock, but I was bummed to learn that Mine That Bird will miss the Grade 1 Travers Stakes at Saratoga this weekend as he recovers from recent epiglottis surgery.

It had been expected that the relatively simple procedure wouldn't make him miss the race, but a complication -- so minor as to perhaps not really be a complication at all -- has prompted the Kentucky Derby winner's connections to take a pass on the race as a measure of absolute caution.

I had been looking forward to the Travers as a race laden with talent in which perhaps both 3-year-old classic-winning sons of Birdstone -- Belmont-winner Summer Bird being the other -- would be coming from well off the pace and collecting the leaders in the stretch to make for the finish of the season.

And it's still got the makings of a great race. Quality Road indeed has something to prove, the talented Charitable Man might have more in the tank at the end of 10 furlongs than he did in the Belmont at 12, and Kensei has been the impressive winner of the Dwyer and Jim Dandy in succession.

Mine That Bird instead will be headed to the Goodwood in October at Santa Anita, which should be a good prep race for the Breeders' Cup Classic, at the same track over which that race will be run.

Jess Jackson: 'Guardian of the Galaxy'

With his usual dose of European horse racing pragmatism, Malcer has weighed in from well on the far side of the pond about the way Jess Jackson is yanking the chain of the American sports media and turf fans, potentially to the detriment of the sport.

Spurred by dueling commentaries from Claire Novak at ESPN.com (who thinks Jackson is displaying a lack of sportsmanship by being so vague about his plans for top filly Rachel Alexandra) and Ed DeRosa (who defends Jackson from Novak on his Big Event Blog), my blogging friend in Germany nails shut the case in favor of Novak right from his headline.

At his blog "The Dresden File," Malcer cautions Mr. Jackson that, "The World Isn't Waiting."

From a global sports perspective, he couldn't be more correct.

Sure, the racing world waits with bated breath to know where Rachel Alexandra is racing next. And "Guardians of the Galaxy" devotees take polls on what's the most interesting upcoming storyline: Adam Warock & the Universal Church of Truth or maybe Rise of the Badoon as a major stellar empire.

Nobody else gives a flying fig.

DeRosa writes from the perspective of a horse racing addict (a monkey that rides both our backs) who knew darned good and well that Rachel Alexandra wasn't running in today's Alabama S.-G1 against fellow 3-year-old fillies at Saratoga. He points to her workout patterns under trainer Steve Asmussen, which indicate she wasn't on the brink of a start.

"John Scheinman of the NYRA press office and trainer Mark Hennig both noticed that," DeRosa writes, "so it's not like deciphering Asmussen's motives required possession of the Rosetta Stone or an advanced degree in reading tea leaves."

No, and I didn't even need that much information to write off the Alabama as her next start. Be it sportsmanship or ego, Jess Jackson's appetite isn't sufficiently fed by watching his filly crush a field of four by 20 lengths, the likely result of an Alabama that included Rachel. (As it is, the Alabama today features eight entries, only one of which is at longer odds than 8/1 in the morning line.) He wants to fry bigger fish, and he wants more of them on the stringer.

I suspect Claire Novak, who has followed racing since childhood and has reported/commented on it for quite some time now, didn't exactly need a lightning bolt from the sky to strike her with the foreknowledge that Rachel wasn't running today, either.

Not so with the rest of the sports media. The non-turf guys and gals. The people with press passes to the Kentucky Derby but who don't know why it's even called "turf writing" when most of the races are on dirt anyway.

For racing to stop being a boutique or niche attraction -- the "Guardians of the Galaxy" of the sports world, only understood and appreciated by the sort of fan who never misses an issue -- the general sports media needs a little spoon-feeding. Jess Jackson is doing that after a fashion, but his evasive, noncommittal statements leave reporters not really knowing what the spoon holds on any given day until it's in their mouths. Could be chicken soup. Could be huitlacoche.

Eventually, only the die-hard turf media are waiting in line every day for another taste. The other sports reporters have scurried off to baseball, hot dogs and apple pie, or at least to NASCAR and a fried bologna burger.

Granted, I knew Rachel Alexandra wouldn't be in today's Alabama Stakes. Ed DeRosa knew it. Claire Novak probably knew it, even without "waiting for the overnight" as she mentions at ESPN.com.

So why can't Jess Jackson just flippin' say so, two or three or five days in advance. And he can, but he doesn't want to. We're all just too amusing as playthings.

"It's fun to have the speculation," Jackson told the Albany Times-Union.

Fun for him, sure. Fun for some of us, maybe, though Claire Novak is no longer giggling. And it is not good for racing as a general-consumption sport.

The longer Jackson waits to commit, the shorter time any given facility will have to promote Rachel's upcoming appearance. That is not such a big deal at Saratoga -- potential site of three out of Rachel's four remaining "races under consideration" -- but it would become a huge concern for Philadelphia Park should Team Rachel opt for the $1 million Pennsylvania Derby-G2 on Sept. 7. A good problem to have, I suppose; better than running without Rachel. But you'd like to have some lead-time to prepare for an overflow crowd and to put on the best possible show.

More important, casual race fans and the general sports media -- which is largely bereft of even casual race fans these days -- get bored quickly with Jackson's little game of "no news makes good news."

So I'll spare us all the drama -- Rachel Alexandra isn't running in the Pennsylvania Derby. Hardly likely, anyway, unless Jess Jackson wants to make me in particular look the fool.

Whatever Jess Jackson wants next, it awaits him at the Spa.

If Jackson -- who doesn't need the money but has bellyached about purses anyway -- desires a $1 million pot, it's there for his filly in the Travers S.-G1 against 3-year-old colts and geldings next Saturday, and at a new distance for Rachel; 10 furlongs.

A shot at older fillies and mares? The Personal Ensign-G1 is the very next day and also at Rachel's untested distance of a mile and a quarter, albeit for much less money.

Really wanna prove Rachel's mettle in historic fashion? Run her against the older males in the Woodward S.-G1 at 9 furlongs on Sept. 5. No filly or mare has ever won the race. So what if the $500,000 purse is barely walking around money for a man with $1.8 billion?

I think it's down to the Travers or the Woodward. I'm not sure the Personal Ensign is enough of a test, for either Rachel or her mercurial owner. But body-slamming the 3-year-old colt/gelding division by sweeping the best of three falls would be quite a feat. And emasculating the older male handicap division in the Woodward gives Rachel a piece of racing history even more rare than her victory in the Preakness, which no filly had won since Nellie Morse in 1924.

Maybe strategy somehow plays into this game of hide-and-seek that Jackson is playing. But I don't really see how. Wherever Rachel shows up, she'll have to race whomever else is entered, and she'll still be one of the favorites. And even if Jackson is trying to ensure a better field -- that is, to dupe the Rachel-dodgers into racing his filly against their collective will by being the last to commit -- there's nothing to stop an entire field from scratching-out on race day if their connections really don't want to run against her.

So, DeRosa's valid suggestion that we as fans and media lack patience notwithstanding, once Rachel crushed colts in the Haskell there never really was any good reason for Jackson and Team Rachel to be playing five races against one another as if they're all somehow on equal footing.

Perhaps Jackson is trying to fashion himself as a latter-day Tom Smith. The great Seabiscuit's trainer played games with the clockers and media, even using a look-alike horse named Grog to hide his star horse's true workouts. And the conditioner was notoriously short on information, to the point of being nicknamed "Silent Tom."

Whatever his motivation, it's clearly working to the satisfaction of Jess Jackson, the individual. Not so much, I'm afraid, for a publicity-starved sport that could stand to have the connections of its biggest star in a quarter-century be a little more accommodating with the general sports media and fans.

Because, as "The Dresden File" states, the rest of the sports world just isn't going to sit around and wait for Rachel Alexandra news. They've got better things to do. Like counting sheep.

And we'll have to try and wake them long enough to watch whichever race it is, once Mr. Jackson makes up his mind.