Thanks Helen for sharing this video of Zenyatta dance moves. It's blog-worthy for sure, so I'm featuring it today.
What a big, beautiful girl. Tall enough for me, too ;-)
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Syncopated gaited Zenyatta: I'll take two like her
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LOL I love your comment about height. I do that all the time. I'm 5'10" as well. :)
ReplyDeleteIs she doing that for fun or do you think she has problems in her back or legs? That seems strange, especially the bucking. Weird. Nice video though.
I think she's young and can't contain her energy. As a yearling, riley didn't like to stand quietly. The energy would always "escape" somehow, usually a hind leg would strike out. Frankly it looked weirdly stereotypic. If i saw an old horse do that I'd think it was something neurological or nerve damage like stringhalt. Riley grew out of it.
ReplyDeleteTo me, Zenyatta looks like she wants to have a tantrum but is "too much a lady" (even with the mouth hardware). Each movement is something a horse naturally does (pawing, bucking), she just makes it her own :-)
What a naughty girl! But you can see she is trying hard to contain herself. I agree, it's just all that energy and spirit trying hard to control itself. She is behaving exactly the way an overly excited Thorougbred would.
ReplyDeleteWatched a replay of the race. There simply cannot be anything physically wrong with a horse that can run like that. And, to top it off, Mike Smith, her jockey said she did it with her ears pricked. (That means she wasn't working to full capacity yet.) He also said there were more "gears" left.
If you have ever galloped a Thoroughbred and let him run, you'd understand. You can actually feel them switch gears like a car as they pick up speed. It's incredible.
Just pent up energy expressed in rather eccentric moves.
ReplyDeleteI like it that she did not begin racing until 3½. The later they start the better IMO.
Her trainer explained one day it is part energy, but mostly to attract the boys. She's trying to get their attention. At least that's what they said.
ReplyDeleteJean,
ReplyDeleteYears ago I was on a trail ride in a grass field. Without warning two riders behind us picked up a canter and raced past Harv. Harv was walking on a loose rein, but when he saw those horses pass him, he LEPT forward like he was out of a starting gate. I'll never forget the feeling as he gathered his hindquarters and launched. He passed the other horses and it took a few huge circles to slow him down. The other thing I was unprepared for was all the movement, it was very hard to keep my seat with every body part in motion.
I watched her win The Breeders Cup, coming from dead last and she took them all. It was a collaboration between horse and jockey, avoiding some pitfalls along the way. She finished happy and unstressed. It was a pleasure to watch.
ReplyDeleteI remember Mike Smith and Zenyatta too from watching Jockeys on animal planet. What a horse!
ReplyDeleteZenyatta is supposed to race against Rachel Alexandra a few times in 2010. I also heard that bit about Zenyatta "flirting". I remember at the Breeders cup a few colts were walking around on 5 legs. It was an exciting day for many!
ReplyDeleteI had a similar experience with the 'launching' horse: I was about 10 years old riding a bony 26 year old TB in a large field, bareback with a hackamore. Some startled deer took off and I foolishly gave him the cue to follow, we started at gentle canter and suddenly he exploded after them. He had been a polo pony and chasing things brought back happy memories. Talking about all that movement - try it bareback on a bony TB. I probably grabbed tight with my legs to hold on which didn't help. He'd played polo until he was 16, he'd seen everything and was dead calm, but he had a lot of fire left.
Laura DT, I don't believe the attracting boys argument -- that sounds like something a man would say ;-)
ReplyDeleteNo, this is a career girl!
There is an awesome pic of Z's hindquarters as she drives out of the gate at
ReplyDeletehttp://hoofcare.blogspot.com/2009/08/zenyatta-in-hind-hoof-drive.html
Great video, thanks for putting it up! I agree she looks young, fit, ready to go, and trying to hold it in. I noticed Mike Smith didn't pick up the irons until they hit the track (Signal they are ready to work? Don't know. Curious.)
ReplyDeleteI'm the first to say I know zippo about TB racing. I have wondered, would they put her on a regulating hormone to keep her out of heat, so she wouldn't be overly distracted by the pheromones coming her way? Anyone know how that works in TB racing?
The "doing it for the boys" thing might be real, might be spin...?
as lovely as she is, and as much as her handlers probably love her, I bet they think she is REALLY annoying too! But hey, aren't geniuses usually a little nuts?
ReplyDeleteFrom my personal experience TB's that are allowed to just be babies and are kept in near 24/7 turnout until they are 3 or 4 years old seem to grow substantially bigger then their 2 year old on-the-track counterparts.
ReplyDeleteMy current horse, redhorsescantjump (he ran through a fence when he was a weanling hence the JC name ;P), has full blooded siblings that went straight from the yearling sales to the track. Their height is 15.3 to 16 hands. My colt is 17.2 at 3 years old. He has only had basic ground training and barn manners taught. I pretty much have just fed him well and let him run crazy in the field. So far it seems to have turned out a better quality horse. Zenyatta was handled with kid gloves also. She prob could have made a ton more $$$ by running young, but I doubt she would have matured as well.
I love that she was started later than most racehorses. I wonder if her "little dance" stretches her shoulders and lower back (the little bucks), and then she is ready to reach her full stride.
ReplyDeleteShe was an absolute joy to watch as she cleaned up the field of fellows from the back of the pack. It honestly did not look like a major effort for her. Unbelievable.
One seea all kinds of funny steps by young energetic (wired!) horses at the race track. Here someone makes a cute point that Zenyatta is doing some amateur dressage
ReplyDeletehttp://isntso.wordpress.com/2009/08/10/463/
Then page down further for some "airs above the ground" at Pimlico. :-)