She often looks beaten, but never is. She looked absolutely beaten in the Aug. 9 Clement Hirsch at DelMar. She was just too far behind with too little time to get there. And then she got into gear.
How fast was she going in the final 100 yards that day? If she were racing Usain Bolt, she would have won by 40 yards.
"She crossed the wire that day going 40 miles per hour and she was just starting to hit her best stride," Smith said.
The dream race with Rachel won't happen.
"I would have loved it, let's just leave it at that," Smith said.
We won't get that, but we will get this.
Zenyatta has never run a really fast race. Which could be a product of her running style. Horses can run only so fast so the pace of the race really affects final times, especially for a horse coming from the back.
What Zenyatta does is run fast enough to pass all the horses in front of her.
"She does things that just ordinary horses can't do," Shirreffs said.
Unbeaten has a special cachet in sports. Almost inevitably, something goes wrong. So far, nothing has ever gone wrong with Zenyatta. Now, once and for all, everybody will get to see if she's as good as her record. *
