Filed under: Horse RacingLOUISVILLE, Ky. -- The question never goes away, even at moments of the sport's greatest triumph and visibility. So it was asked again, this time of Zenyatta's trainer, two days before the latest super-horse shoots for career win No. 20 out of 20 tries in the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic at Churchill Downs:
How do you reconcile the celebrity of one transcendent horse with the ongoing wreckage of the entire thoroughbred industry?
John Shirreffs' answer was borderline poetic, about the inherent beauty of the thoroughbred and the allure a great one has to the general public, and how a champion like Zenyatta can connect to that public and possibly bring the sport back to its former glory. His conclusion was a plea: "Come and see Zenyatta.''
It was heartfelt. But it was grasping at straws. Win or lose, Zenyatta isn't going to save racing. Losing, in fact, will only continue a trend that is doing as much damage to the horse business in this country as dwindling handles, shrinking attendance and, most recently, the likely shuttering of another legendary track.
That trend is The Big Letdown.
As much as an exception as Zenyatta is -- a female beating males, a star that never shined during the Triple Crown races, a perfect record yet still a curiosity and a target of skepticism -- she could well suffer the same fate as the ever-lengthening list of hopefuls that reached the last leg of the Triple Crown only to not only fail, but utterly disappoint.
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