The horses will keep running, but for a while, the fans will stop caring as much.
Horse racing is no different from other sports. Seasons build to highs and, that ended, return to plateaus of the routine.
Zenyatta will race no more. Certainly, she will not be forgotten.
Her dash down the homestretch at Churchill Downs on Saturday, ending three inches short of the wonderful colt Blame, was both a tonic and a catalyst for her sport. So many more watched with so much more interest than would ever be imagined for a niche-audience event such as the Breeders’ Cup that the potential lasting residuals should not be underestimated.
If nothing else, it inspired the wit of the written word.
Sunday morning’s headline in the Louisville Courier-Journal, the horse racing bible in America’s horse-racing mecca, was perfect: BLAME THE WINNER.
Longtime racing journalist Ed Golden noted that “the only thing Zenyatta lost in defeat was the race.”
Beverly Hills screenwriter Jim Hayden gave the perfect dry summary when he wrote: “The catching-up strategy seems to have caught up to her.”
Full story: The barn door closes on Zenyatta’s career, but much is left open in horse racing – latimes.com