Jimbo:

Have to disagree here, and hope you have read Crist's comparison of Personal
Ensign and Zenyatta in his DRF blog.

Jim, you are about 20 years younger than I am. Covel has told me that he is a
"pup" and Silver Charm pointedly gloated that he recently celebrated a birthday
which made him "much younger" than I am.

One thing which I have seen change in Racing is that the best horses used to
come to the East Coast and specifically NY to really establish themselves. One
of the first runners that D Wayne had which made him a national presence was the
brilliantly fast filly Terlingua. I am sure there were Grade I races she was
eligible for in California, but she was shipped cross country to face the cream
of the crop, and as I recall, was beaten at a short price. Other West Coast
based runners I remember coming East to face the heavy hitters were Exceller
and JO Tobin, among others.

Without trying to sound too provincial,and without trying to infuriate a
certain poster from the Bay Area, in the 70s and 80s the Graded Races run at
the NYRA tracks were the races that Owners, Trainers and Breeders wanted to win.
The purses tended to be higher and the races had more history. I can not be
scientific about this other than to say that each September, after Saratoga
(used to be the AUGUST place to be) closed, they conducted a Fall Championship
Meeting at Belmont (and this really meant something before the 1984 roll out of
the BC). Runners converged on Belmont from Europe, California, Canada and the
Midwest.

Any defender of California racing in the 70s and 80s must be prepared to
provide the name of a runner who raced strictly on the West Coast who became an
influential stud on a national level.

NYRA grew complacent. Other venues began to offer larger purses. NYRA stakes
were downgraded. Other tracks, notably Arlington with its Million, began to
make inroads in terms of creating and promoting high purse graded events which
became important to breeders and owners worldwide.

At the same time, the breeding industry evolved in a way that performance on
the track and in graded events was marginalized.

Personal Ensign ventured away from NY only once. In her era, because of the
status of NY racing, it was almost assured that challengers would come to face
her in her own backyard.

I have no problem with Zenyatta's connections trying to maintain her undefeated
status. I doubt that the Mosses will ever sell any interest in this filly or
any of her produce, at auction or otherwise. As such, there is nothing which
can happen on the racetrack which will affect her value positively or
negatively to any great degree.

Zenyatta's connections had very good fortune that the Brilliant! minds which
are currently running Racing (into the ground) decided to conduct the BC races
over the carpet for 2 straight years. They are also lucky that Handicap racing
is basically a thing of the past, meaning Zenyatta will likely never be put in
a position where she is heavily weighted against less qualified rivals.

I do not feel as strongly as you do that Zenyatta's connection's decisions to
remain in a comfort zone is so much a part of what is wrong with Racing; I
would be much more concerned with the serious problems in 3 of Racing's major
venues-- California and Kentucky have each approached state authorities with
requests for FEWER racing dates, and NY only manages to race 5 days a week by
diluting the quality(?) of its once proud racing program with turf sprints and
cheap NY bred races.

Loved the line about the Generals and the Globetrotters.