As advertised

No ladies on the track on Ladies Day, but plenty of terrific racehorses putting on a great show, a big show, a king size show.  Or queen size.  Whatever.

The obvious, and anticipated, star of the show was uber-filly Zenyatta, who spanked a really good group of fillies and mares in the Ladies Classic-nee Distaff.  With her startling turn of foot and penchant for lagging behind the field early, she’s turned in a stellar seven-for-seven season while winning with panache.  She did so again yesterday, looping up well wide and inhaling the field for a comfortable length-and-change victory.

She’s the filly of the year and, if Curlin stumbles today, might grab Horse of the Year honors.

I was quite pleased with myself before the first post as I told my wife Erin that Ventura, in the Filly and Mare Sprint, was my pick of the day and looked rock-solid, even against the likes of Indian Blessing.  I was right, but then again, so was everyone else in the Western Hemisphere, as Ventura, 5-1 in the morning line, was pounded down to 5-2 by race time.  She, too, delivered a scintillating performance, rallying wide to win off by four in a bracing time of 1:19 4/5 for the seven-eighths of a mile.

The low odds of Ventura, and the likelihood that Indian Blessing would hang on for second (as she did), put me into multi-race exotics, namely, a double with Euro invader Heart Shaped in the Juvy Filly Turf.  Clearly, however, whoever bred Heart Shaped didn’t think to look for a long-nosed pedigree influence, as that one just missed by thismuch in a nose loss to Maram.

The good news: all was not lost on our end, as Erin cashed a whole mess of tickets on that race and had the pleasure of visiting the IRS window.  I had to admit — albeit grudgingly — that having her horse edge out mine was better for the team.  Still painful, though.

Something else painful: watching the races via TVG yesterday was somewhat torturous.  For one thing, none of the seemingly endless parade of announcers and commentators could utter even a single sentence without mentioning — with a note of astonishment — that there were two days of Breeders’ Cup racing.  Two!  Not one.  Two.  Incredible!

Yeah, guys.  We got it.

For another, they had declared the Ladies Day concept an unadulterated triumph before even one race had run.  The overnight numbers are, arguably, suggesting a different interpretation.

No surprise that TVG would be in the tank for the Breeders’ Cup folks, nor that they would be eager to promote both days of the event.  But perhaps a little subtlety, a little pretense to objectivity, or, hell, just a ceasefire in the outright shilling would have been nice.

I could live with all of these issues, however, if the coverage of races was better.  It ain’t.

The time between races is seemingly endless, lending itself to many possible uses.  TVG chose this one: showing the tote board while playing Muzak versions of old songs.

Huh?

With all the racing-brain power available — including former trainer Simon Bray and current trainer Tom Amoss, and Matt Carothers with his ridiculous voice — howzabout some in-depth analysis, guys?  How about breaking the race down horse-by-horse, giving us some detailed pace analysis, or pedigree discussion? In other words, how about giving us some insight that’s not, perhaps, readily available by glancing at the Form?

Instead, we get musing about how to construct their multi-race exotics, intermittently interrupted by analysis.  For me, the thrill of hearing one or the other of them discussing their Pick-Six card wears off in a hurry.

One other issue, which is less with TVG and more with all of us — fans, that is.

We constantly carp about owners who take their horses off the track too soon; we complain about them, we condemn them as greedy and for despoiling our beloved sport.  Of course, it’s easy for all of us to spend other people’s money; it’s the great American game.

More to the point, though, owners who do what we consider the right thing by bringing stars back too often get very little bounce from their good deed.  Mirroring society in general, we’re a “what have you done for me lately” game, and there can be no question that, if Zenyatta returns next year and falters, we’ll immediately be on to the next thing.

Doubt me?  Consider the case of Ginger Punch, last year’s champion filly, following an absolutely thrilling neck victory in the then-Distaff.  The much-reviled Frank Stronach — whose mismanagement of his racetrack operations is matched, perhaps even exceeded, by his excellence as a breeder — for the second time this decade (Ghostzapper being the other) brought back a champion to try to defend her/his crown.

By broad consensus, Ginger Punch was not quite as good this year as last, although “not quite as good” still led to three Grade I victories.  She was pounded down to odds-on in every start this year, prior to yesterday’s, and had delivered good efforts in all but one.

But in the media or around the blogosphere, there was virtually no discussion of or appreciation for Stronach’s decision to bring the champ back or the horse’s consistent excellence.  We’d all moved on to Zenyatta, and that was that.

And there, as they say, is the rub.  It’s not that there’s risk involved in bringing back a champion horse; it’s that it’s almost all risk and virtually no reward.  By bringing a champ back, the owner is deciding to take enormous financial risks, in which the best case scenario financially — that is, if the horse wins a whole mess of high quality races — is that he makes a much smaller profit than he could have by selling the horse.

That might be all right if there were a mountain of acclaim awaiting him for the decision.  But if the horse falters at all — or if a shooting star like Zenyatta (or, had he secured the Triple Crown, Big Brown) whizzes across the racing sky — then, pffft, who cares who last year’s champ was?

Heck, consider even Curlin and his relentlessly self-promoting owner, Jess Jackson.  That horse has done everything right this year, with the small and forgivable exception of a second-place finish in the grassy Man O’ War.  He’s mostly won by comfortable margins while grinding down horses of somewhat inferior quality, a descriptor which, according to the folks who compare horses worldwide, applies to every other horse in the world.

For all that, his races at Saratoga and Belmont mostly generated a big, long yawn from the racing world.  Sure, great, super, Curlin.  Right.  Whatever.

It’s easy to blame owners, racetrack operators, Breeders’ Cup executives, and the Wizard of Oz for racing’s problems.  But what if a big part of the problem is us?