Horse Of The Year

The horse of the year ran in the Ladies Classic, undefeated Zenyatta deserves the honors. Curlin started the year off in sterling form, had an aggressive campaign planned that terminated as his form steadily waned. Zanyatta was steady and strong throughout the year winning on all the Socal tracks. Her ace in the hole is that she scored on dirt at Oaklawn. To put an exclamation point on the whole body of work her win in the Ladies Classic was absolutely brilliant.

Zenyatta won all seven of the Graded Stakes races she ran in and improved as the year went on. Her year was a steady accent. She has the potential to be a legend like Personal Ensign the other main track undefeated filly champion if she comes back for more. The fact that she won on dirt puts her over the edge, the dual surface wins are something that Curlin could not match. This year was the year of the Z fillys in racing, overseas we had Zarkava and in North America we had Zenyatta. The undefeated Z filly should be awarded the honors.

Curlin started the year off with such promise. Two rousing victories in Dubai and then an aggressive campaign lined up that was supposed to end in Paris. While we commend the connections for taking a sporting risk the end result was a let down. The turf was quickly abandoned and the Bredders Cup was sort of an after thought after the trip to Japan seemed like too much. The latter part of Curlin's campaign did not have the same level of success as his fall 2007 winter 2008 campaign had. He fell far short of that and failed to take the big prize the Breeders Cup classic, a race he had every chance to win. Curlin raced on three surfaces but could only manage to win on dirt. His turf race was a gutsy placing but was far from the extraordinary wins Zenyatta racked up over different tracks and surfaces. We have to give Curlin and "E" for effort and a "E: for racing as a four year old but the HOY goes to the filly.