By Thomas Chambers
“The breathless excitement and anticipation of a heavyweight championship fight.”
– Howard Cosell, Sinatra: The Main Event
It’s that big.
It’s as set as racing gets. Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta will run in the Apple Blossom Invitational Handicap at Oaklawn Park, Hot Springs, Arkansas.
Except that it won’t be on its original April 3 date, but on April 9, the Friday before the Arkansas Derby. It will be a weekend that will rival any this year, including the Kentucky Derby. This is as big a race as can be run.
These are two horses who, through their heroics and sheer magnificence, have forced their people to succumb to the inevitable and let them compete.
It almost didn’t happen.
After news last week that Oaklawn and its president, Charles Cella, would boost the purse to $5 million if the two super females would run in the Apple Blossom, Rachel Alexandra’s connections Wednesday bowed out, saying they would not have enough time to get a prep into Rachel and then wheel her back for the April 3 race. They cited the rainy New Orleans weather as hampering Rachel’s training routine at her winter home at Fair Grounds.
In taking the Blossom rain check, Rachel Alexandra’s owner Jess Jackson and trainer Steve Asmussen spoke of seeking another week’s time to get Rachel ready. And Jackson talked of laying out a three-race series between the two.
So Cella and Oaklawn blasted the ball back into Jackson’s court.
“The Apple Blossom Invitational has been renegotiated. Both principles are on line and have pledged to me they will enter their horses and race,” Cella said. “The date will be Friday, the 9th of April. All other conditions remain the same.”
(When making the initial $5 million pledge, Oaklawn announced the race would be renamed the Invitational. It was formerly the Apple Blossom Handicap.)
Those conditions are one mile and one-eighth, 9 furlongs. Half a furlong long for Rachel’s super sustained quickness, and half a furlong, or more, short for Zenyatta’s long-form, closing ideal distance. Plug in the cozy turns and Oaklawn’s long homestretch, and it’s got the makings of a thriller.
At Each Other’s Throats
Zenyatta was pointed to the Apple Blossom all along.
She figures to go in the Grade I Santa Margarita Invitational Handicap on March 13 at Santa Anita, and Moss has always said he wanted her in Hot Springs in April.
Zenyatta, a perfect 14-0 in her career, won the Apple Blossom in 2008.
After her historic win in the Breeders’ Cup Classic last November, in which she engineered a last-to-first closing masterpiece to be the first female to win the Classic, she was beaten out for Horse of the Year by Rachel Alexandra.
Just Thursday, it was announced that Rachel Alexandra would prep on March 13 in the New Orleans Ladies, a $200,000 race created just for her. Her connections are still fretting the weather.
“It’s not anyone’s fault, but with the rain and the track conditions it’s been a serious setback to Rachel’s routine,” Jackson said. “When you’re training a horse, it’s an animal that needs to have a regular routine and Steve’s been hard-pressed to keep her going given the weather.”
They always leave themselves an out, don’t they?
While losing the Horse of the Year trophy certainly stuck in Jerry and Ann Moss’ craws, they’ve got to believe Zenyatta will be supremely prepared for the Apple Blossom.
She never really stopped training after the Breeders’ Cup and logged three recorded workouts at Hollywood. By the end of the year, racing fans and all the Tick Tock McGlaughlins of the world were wondering out loud, “What gives? I thought she was retired.”
Just hours before losing Horse of the Year honors at the Eclipse Awards in mid-January, Moss announced officially that Zenyatta would race again in 2010, and it became crystal clear in the hotel ballroom that Moss and Jackson wanted at each other. Through their horses, of course.
With little more than a drop of hope that the two would meet in an April 3 Apple Blossom, I was able to get tickets, secure in the thought that at least I’d get to see the great Zenyatta that day. Now, I’m scrambling for April 9.
From a very early handicapping point of view, it seems a great match-up at a track that will allow each to spin her style.
It will be Rachel’s professional, lightning quick and fast turn of foot and lasting power versus Zenyatta’s use of every inch of Oaklawn’s storied stretch.
It does not figure to be a pure match race; no way another Ruffian-Foolish Pleasure debacle will be risked. And we don’t yet know who will join the race, or how many.
Now, lets see which TV shop scrambles for the telecast. ESPN and NBC figure to be the frontrunners.
Call to the post? Can’t wait.
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Thomas Chambers is the Beachwood’s man on the rail. He brings you TrackNotes every Friday. He welcomes your comments.
Posted on February 12, 2010