by Bob Ehalt
The objective in any horse race is to run faster than everyone else.
Yet, when it comes to dealing with Zenyatta, opponents have adopted a different tactic in trying to hand the reigning champion older female her first career defeat: They’ve been going slower.
In Zenyatta’s four races this year, the half-mile fraction for each race was progressively slower as opponents tried to negate the five-year-old mare’s powerful kick.
The move has yet to pay off, though it has illustrated a main facet of racing over synthetic surfaces and made the compiling of speed figures a more complex task.
In examining Zenyatta’s four races this year, the half-mile times were :47.14 in the Milady Handicap (G2) on May 23 at Hollywood Park, :48.02 in the Vanity Handicap (G1) on June 27 at Hollywood Park, :48.84 in the Clement L. Hirsch Stakes (G1) on August 9 at Del Mar, and a pedestrian :49.58 in the Lady’s Secret Stakes (G1) on October 10 at the Oak Tree meeting at Santa Anita Park.
In each of those races on synthetic tracks, Zenyatta still managed to rally from last or next-to-last to keep alive a perfect record that now stands 13 wins in as many career starts. But in those last two races, the pace was so slow that it impacted the final time and forced Ragozin Thoroughbred Data to make an adjustment in the crafting of its speed figures for the race.
“A horse can only move so fast,” said Len Friedman, a partner with Ragozin Thoroughbred Data. “If there is an unusually slow pace, a horse can’t make up for it by running its final quarter mile in 19 seconds so that it can run the expected time for a Grade 1 stakes. There are physical limitations. That’s why we make corrections. We have rules that we follow so that we feel we’re still coming up with accurate numbers. There are judgments involved in creating any number, but there are more subjective factors than normal in giving out numbers for races with a very slow pace.”
While the slow paces have created extra homework for the Ragozin compilers, it has also opened the door for a bit more indecision on the part of handicappers.
In Zenyatta’s three most recent races, her rounded off Ragozin speed figures form a downward tilting line of 5-2-0 (lower numbers are better on the Ragozin scale). Under normal circumstances, she would most likely be a toss out in a Breeders’ Cup race. Yet with uncertainty as to whether the 5 means she’s finally regressing or simply could not overcome the slow pace, there’s one more factor to weigh in betting her at the Breeders’ Cup.
In Friedman’s eyes, the 5, even with an asterisk due to the pace, sets off an alarm, especially if Zenyatta runs against males in the Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1).
“The 5 certainly raises a question of whether she’s peaked,” Friedman said. “The pace adds a variable that has to be considered, but I’m reasonably confident it wasn’t a good a number, even with the slow pace.”
While Zenyatta’s recent line indicates she would be a better fit for the Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic (G1), the Breeders’ Cup Classic has its own pace issues.
Santa Anita’s main prep for the Classic, the Goodwood Stakes (G1), which was run about a half-hour before the Lady’s Secret, also need a pace adjustment after an opening half-mile of :48.54.
To Friedman, the fact that both the Lady’s Secret and Goodwood had early fractions one might normally see in claiming races, merely underscored the growing realization that racing over synthetic surfaces is nearly a mirror image of grass racing, which features slower fractions and favors closers.
“Races on synthetic surfaces are really grass races and that’s how you have to look at them,” Friedman said. “The early paces are slower in synthetic races and the fields are not strung out, just like they are in grass races.”
With that in mind, don’t expect to see blistering fractions at next week’s return of the Breeders’ Cup to Santa Anita’s Pro-Ride surface. In last year’s six main track Breeders’ Cup route races at Santa Anita, 66% (eight of 12) of the horses who finished first and second were seventh or worse at the half-mile pole in those races.
For front-runners, going slow once again looms the best and perhaps the only way to prove fastest.
For more information on Ragozin speed figures, go to
www.thesheets.com
.