It’s About Time

By Ellen Parker

          For more than a half century, this world-weary turf writer has been attending races from one end of the country to another. No matter where we live, we’ll always be a Californian at heart, so let’s make that much clear at the start.

          But we got an early lesson in just how much prejudice could be leveled against a Kentucky-bred when Round Table first took us to the races lo these many years ago.  Again and again we heard him underrated and ignored as a “California horse”. 

          And for all these many years since his 1959 retirement, yes season after season, we’ve watched this same stupid prejudice at work.  Yet never has the East Coast bias been more shocking or ill-placed than it has against Zenyatta

          Finally, finally, common sense prevailed and she earned a Horse of the Year award that should have been her third in a row.  Anyone who did not vote for her is so out of touch with how the general public responded to this wondrous gift to racing they don’t deserve to ever vote again.

          This sport is in such deep trouble that it will likely never dig itself out.  It is hardly difficult to imagine a world in which there are only slot machines and no more Thoroughbreds.  Zenyatta helped to take the focus off of gambling and sales and put the horse back into horse racing.

          As in she actually raced until she was six years old.  Yes, her connections risked everything.  How easy it would have been to retire her unbeaten on the incredible note of having won a Breeders’ Cup over the best male horses in the world!  Most people would have done exactly that.

          But chancing her future in every way possible they again brought her back – back to her public and back to this sport.  Their reward was racing’s reward.  We owe them everything.

          For all of you who voted for Blame – shame on you!  When are you going to get it into your heads that good horses run everywhere, and that Zenyatta logged more flying miles last year than Blame ever did?  Or that you are more enamored with the names of the races he won than the nothing horses he ran against in those races? 

          Yes, he beat Zenyatta.  We were there, we saw it.  And we know she earned more respect in defeat than he did in victory for the very telling reasons that a) she gave him a half mile lead, b)  she traveled farther c) the track needed to be watered and wasn’t.  You don’t see us saying “she was a filly against colts” because she’s so much better than the colts.

          In 2009 Rachel Alexandra beat some of the worst colts we’ve ever seen.  And as for the handicap division –what a joke!  What HANDICAP?  When was the last time a great male horse carried real weight and won like a man?  Eh?  Is that the echo of Dr. Fagers’ feet I hear?  Yet the names of the races won Rachel the award.  This year the fact that she was used up in pursuit of that award was glaringly apparent from the outset.  What kind of owner does that?

          There will never be an end to this argument, that much is certain.  But we stood willing and ready to resign from the NTWAB if Zenyatta had not finally been given her long overdue gold trophy.  Frankly, we did not want to be associated with any group of people who were so far removed from reality and so ‘above’ what the fans were feeling that they actually thought Blame was the better horse.

          Finally, everyone, pause for a moment.  Feel that vast emptiness?  In the hearts and minds of racing fans everywhere, in the vast grandstands that are monuments to our failure to deliver real star power to our sport?  Feel it real good and proper.  And then ask yourself what is missing.  If you are honest and look deeply into the truth of the matter you will know that what is missing are more Zenyattas and more people like the outstanding group that surrounded her – from the Mosses to the Shirreffs to every single person at the barn – they were all 110% on board for racing – you know, that little enterprise that pays your bloody bills.

          Time to climb down from your ivory towers and get out to the backstretch.  Get your shoes dirty and your hearts involved.  Listen to the little guy for a change.  At one time or other, we were all him.   We won’t be around much longer.  As a cancer survivor, every day is a gift, so we don’t even know if we’ll be around to see Zenyatta’s children race.  But we hope we will.  More than that, we hope there will be a venue to present their talent since they are not going to be bred for a sales ring.  They are going to be bred to be racehorses, California racehorses. 

          So bring it, Big Z, and we’ll try to be on hand for the unveiling of the next generation of horses who actually run.  Maybe by that time all the old East Coast bias types will be out of the picture and possibly replaced with minds a bit more open to actually acknowledging a horse who participates in what we are supposed to be doing – racing!

Posted 1-20-2011