Could Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra meet in New York?
Good news in and around the New York Racing Association has been slightly rarer than hens’ teeth of late.
The NYRA financial affairs have been teetering on the precipice of penury for some time. The NYRA, which runs Aqueduct, Saratoga and Belmont, have been trying to balance the books for the last eight months - in December there were doubts that the group would be still be operating due to its parlous financial situation.
The NYRA’s ship was only kept afloat recently through a $25million state loan just to stave off a shutdown and fund this summer’s racing so the announcement that it had ditched its directive that required horses to be isolated in a security barn six hours prior to running in any race at an NYRA track looked nothing other than a climb down.
The new rule starts with the first day of the prestigious Saratoga summer meeting on July 23rd and appears to be case of the NYRA jumping before they were pushed. Trainers had threatened to boycott the security barn having found that negations with the NYRA had been fruitless.
The trainers claimed that the security barn was a stressful environment for their horses and prevented them and their own veterinarians attending to the horses. If the policy was an attempt to restrict the use of illegal substances they argued that the current pre and post-race drug testing effectively deter or catch cheaters regardless of whether horses are isolated or not.
Rick Violette, president of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, said that the new testing procedures and NYRA's plan to have security personnel monitor horses who have been entered to race creates a "better mousetrap" for backstretch security. Speaking to the Daily Racing Form he said: “It'll be more horse-friendly without sacrificing the highest level of integrity in the business.”
This move was also seen as a business decision by the NYRA as they seek cost-cutting measure in an attempt to balance the books.
However what would be better for business would be staging the first racecourse clash between Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra. This has started to taken on the yes-no-perhaps-maybe element that is normally the preserve of the prize-fighting profession. Monmouth Park were the last track to attempt to engineer a meeting between the two queens of American racing.
Having successfully tempted the connections of Rachel Alexandra to run in the Lady’s Secret Stakes on July 24th the racecourse executive then turned their attention to the team behind Zenyatta. However, they were politely rebuffed.
Zenyatta’s next run, as she attempts to extend her unbeaten career streak to 18, is likely to be the Grade One Clement Hirsch Handicap, at Del Mar on August 7th, although the mare’s trainer, John Shirreffs, has gone on record as having doubts about running Zenyatta in the race which she won in both 2008 and 2009.
Shirreffs is waiting until he has satisfied himself over concerns that he has about the current quality of the Polytrack surface at the course. He will defer any decision about the race until he has assessed how the surface performs in the early weeks of the meeting, which begins on July 21st.
There is no chance of Jess Jackson, who owns Rachel Alexandra in partnership with Harold McCormick, taking Rachel Alexandra to California for a race with Zenyatta. All the tracks in that state have synthetic rather than dirt surfaces and Jackson has had an implacable stance on what he derides as “plastic” surfaces since Curlin was beaten in fourth place on the Polytrack at Santa Anita in 2008.
Which means that Zenyatta will have to travel out of California, which she has only done twice before, both times for victories at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas.
Just as Jackson has a problem with synthetic tracks so Shirreffs has been a rare visitor to NYRA tracks after a similarly bad experience. Shirreffs trained Giacomo who, like Zenyatta was owned by Jerry and Ann Moss, to win the 2005 Kentucky Derby. After finishing a respectable third in the Preakness Stakes he was an 18-length seventh in the Belmont Stakes, and connections cited the conditions in the security barn as at least partly to blame.
The new ruling opens the possibility for Shirreffs to consider NYRA courses if he decides that Del Mar’s track are not right for Zenyatta. At Grade One level the options could be the Personal Ensign Stakes on August 29th or maybe the Woodward Stakes on September 4th, which are both at Saratoga, or the Grade Two Molly Pitcher Stakes, run on the same day as the Personal Ensign, at Monmouth.
If Zenyatta comes east it would throw the gauntlet down to the Rachel Alexandra camp to meet her in whichever race the visitors chose.
And that could only be good news for the NYRA.
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