Rachel Alexandra lost again, this time to Unrivaled Belle. The superstar filly had no excuses today, although her trainer would like you to believe it is the amount of weight she is asked to carry. The fact is 124 (four more pounds than other horses in the field) is no handicap for a filly like Rachel. Heck it isn’t even a large amount of weight for a four year old filly.

Rachel is a champion. She is fast, and capable of winning at any time, but she is also not the same horse this year that she was last year. Hal Wiggins and his training methods are looking a whole lot better. Maybe Jackson could put in a call to him? Make no mistake, Wiggins made Rachel a champion, not Steve Asmussen. Rachel went on hiatus after the Woodward last year, and Asmussen has not been able to bring her back to the form she showed last year.

Maybe all the blame cannot rest on Asmussen’s shoulders. Fillies are temperamental and it is often very hard for them to string two winning races together, let alone two winning seasons. Yes, champions are made during one year of racing, but legends often race multiple seasons. They have that certain air about them that will not let them lose. It is not hard to think of Eclipse award winning fillies or even colts for that matter that could not return to form one year to the next. Stardom Bound, Meadow Star, Sweet Catomine, and Halfbridled jump out for starters, and that is just recent years.

There is a reason why Street Sense was the first two year old champion to win the Kentucky Derby since Spectacular Bid in 1979. It is not the curse of the Breeders Cup Juvenile. It could be that an early bloomer at two is the same horse at three, but their peers over the winter catch up.

Throw in injury as reason for a rest, and a horse that can return to form following one becomes a real rarity.

It is for this reason that Ruffian will always be the benchmark against what all great fillies are measured by. She was lengths better than her rivals at two, suffered a hairline fracture and came back in April of 1975 as good, if not better than before. Even with the injury, she never lost a step until the fateful day. No matter how spectacular Rachel was last year, and she was spectacular, the fact that she has now lost two races against lesser fillies, highlights just how special Ruffian was. We may never see one like her again.

Zenyatta looks poised to string together yet another undefeated season. She is a deserving champion just like her rival, Rachel, but she only really runs the last part of her races. Ruffian ran fast the entire race, had stamina to get a mile and a half, natural speed and that same competitive fire Zenyatta shows time and time again. Where Zenyatta nips her competitors at the wire, often by small margins, Ruffian was lengths better than her peers, and she did it all so easy. There is also always going to be that lingering feeling of “we just never saw the absolute bottom of her.” She set records without even trying and it is hard to argue with superiority in times.

Will Rachel again run like the Rachel of 2009? Time will tell. For now thoughts of meeting Zenyatta seem to have lost their appeal. Zenyatta at this point would likely soar past Rachel in the final stages of any race. What once seemed like the match of the century, would likely be another easy victory in Zenyatta’s string of many. Chances are Rachel will be retired. Why ruin her reputation by letting filly after filly beat her to the wire?  Zenyatta finally just may have the coveted top prize that slipped through her hooves for the past two years.