Rach, Zen, $5mil, OakPark, ApBlos, Apr3? Maybe.

February 7, 2010 by Greg Brandow
Filed under: Horse Racing 

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s a movement afoot to get Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta into the same starting gate.  (Yeah, I know, it’s been mentioned.)

Sam Houston Race Park was the first to start throwing money around in an attempt to entice Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta to meet at their race track - a quaint $1.5 million for a race on March 27th.  Since there’s no way Rachel will be ready for Zenyatta by then, it’s a non-starter. 

Next up is Oaklawn Park’s offer to raise the purse for the April 3rd Apple Blossom from $500,000 to $5,000,000, and change the distance from a mile and a sixteenth to a mile and an eighth, if both Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta start.  This one has a better chance of coming to fruition, given that both horses have raced and won over the Oaklawn Park dirt, but it may still turn out to be too soon for Rachel Alexandra.  The Apple Blossom is eight weeks away and it’s safe to say that both camps will want to have a prep race before meeting.

Zenyatta is much closer to being race ready than Rachel Alexandra.  In fact, she hasn’t really had much of a layoff since winning the in Breeders’ Cup Classic on November 7th.  Since then, she’s recorded six workouts: Dec7 (4f 50.4), Dec21 (4f 49.4), Jan6 (4f 48.0), Jan17 (5f 1:01.4), Jan25 (5f 1:00.2), Feb3 (5f 1:01.6).  The accelerating pattern of workouts certainly seems to indicate she is right on schedule for her first race of the year, expected to be the Santa Margarita Handicap (G1) at Santa Anita on March 13th.  (Zenyatta workouts) 

Rachel Alexandra’s last race was the Woodward Stakes at Saratoga on September 5th and she’s only just returned to the track for any kind of serious work.  Her first official workout was Jan31, an easy 4 furlongs in 52 seconds, and she went another 4f Saturday morning in :50.6. (Rachel Alexandra workouts)  Assuming trainer Steve Asmussen won’t be training her up to a race against Zenyatta, where will she make her 2010 debut?  The Azeri Stakes (G3) at Oaklawn on March 6th looks to be a little too soon, although I’m guessing Oaklawn could be talked into pushing it back a week, but a quick look at the stakes schedule at Fair Grounds, where Rachel Alexandra is training, shows an interesting, and as yet unnamed, $200,000 stakes race for fillies and mares four years old and up at a mile and a sixteenth on March 13th – the same day Zenyatta will be making her debut in California.  (Hmmm, why not just name it The Inaugural Rachel Alexandra Stakes?)  Assuming no hiccups in Rachel’s training schedule (enough with the rain already!), this gives Asmussen five weeks to get a few more works into her and tighten her up with a race that should be little more than a walkover.

I think it’s about 60:40 that the race comes together.  If it doesn’t, so what?  I want to see them race against each other when they’re both at the top of their game.  It’s a long season and there will be plenty of other opportunities for these two to match up.

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