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Invitations posted – are the guests ready?

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The collective pulse of British and Irish racing may be quickening with each tick of the clock until the start of the Cheltenham Festival but, on the other side of the Herring Pond, there is an equal stirring.

The first racecourse meeting between Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra is little more than a month away and these are two stars who know how to attract an audience. Track work on a Tuesday morning at the Fair Grounds, in Louisiana, might not normally attract much attention but the Horse of the Year has a certain pulling power.

That meant that trainers, workriders and any other passing traffic found a pitch down the backstretch as Rachel Alexandra come out for a morning stretch before her first run of the season on Saturday week.  With her galloping companion a length in front, Rachel Alexandra, under heavy restraint, went through slow early fractions of 13.00, 25.60, and 38.20 seconds, before she was let off the leash by workrider Dominic Terry  to come clear in the last two furlongs.  

To the naked eye Rachel Alexandra looked good enough but when the clock stopped on six furlongs in 1min 13.60sec her trainer, Steve Asmussen, said: “I was hoping she would go a little quicker. The main thing is that she is healthy and this is a step to getting her back to her previous level.

“It was how fast her company was, and us wanting to keep her off of it,” Asmussen said, explaining the time of the work. “It was a little slower from the five-eighths to the three-eighths, but Dominic was restraining her.”

For those who always found fractions confusing in a maths lesson the whole picture will become much clearer when Rachel Alexandra runs in the New Orleans Ladies on the same track on Saturday week. The race is meant as a prep for Rachel Alexandra's scheduled meeting with Zenyatta in the Apple Blossom at Oaklawn on April 9th. “We built up to this point. From here we need to back off, let her catch her breath. Her last workout will be a half-mile, and we won't be looking for speed, just fluid and relaxed," Asmussen said.

"We are still on course for the New Orleans Ladies," said Asmussen. "We'll need to get something out of that race to move forward."

Up in Arkansas, Oaklawn Park are getting busy for what is their big moment in the spotlight. The Apple Blossom Invitational is, in reality, going to be a two-horse race but the racecourse executive will want to have some top-quality window dressing. Entries for the race close next Wednesday and eight fillies and mares will be invited to compete against Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta in a race which will be worth $5million, but only if the two champions start.

Eric Jackson, the track's general manager, makes no secret that his priority is to have both Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta in the starting gate. In fact, he told the Daily Racing Form: “That's our only priority. The race is everything that counts. It's not the attendance. It isn't the handle. It isn't anything else. This is 'Race for the Ages.' If the other things come together, that's great."

Jackson said the first step is getting past March 13th, when both Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta are scheduled to make their seasonal debuts, with Zenyatta running in the Grade One Santa Margarita Invitational at Santa Anita. The owners of both mares have indicated their intent to run in the Apple Blossom next but one suspects, after the yes-no saga that has gone before, that Jackson will believe that when they both turn up in the Oaklawn parade ring. And even then he may have his fingers crossed.

“If everybody's moving forward from March 13, then we'll start getting real serious about our crowd estimates and what we think will happen,” Jackson said. “But right now, I'm very comfortable saying I think it will be around 50,000, which is a phenomenally good day.”

The Dubai World Cup, which weighs in at $10million, is a phenomenally big prize, although not enough to temp trainer John Shirreffs to send Zenyatta over to Meydan. However, Shirreffs is running Life Is Sweet, the winner of last year’s Breeders’ Cup Ladies Classic. Although Life Is Sweet has never won over 10 furlongs, as a California-based runner she is used to synthetic surfaces so should act on Meydan’s new Tapeta track. “I don’t think the distance is an issue whatsoever, and the surface is in her favour, too,” Shirreffs said. “Whoever is in the field, I think she’ll compare very well with them.”

If she can compare with Zenyatta it could be game over.

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