Zenyatta makes history with Vanity win

Horseracing Betting Lines

06/13/2010 - Inglewood, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Two-time champion mare Zenyatta remained undefeated with a third straight win in Sunday's $250,000 Vanity Handicap at Hollywood Park. The undefeated mare ran her career record to 17 straight wins.

Owned by Jerry and Ann Moss, Zenyatta breaks the tie she had with legendary horses Citation and Cigar. Her 17 lifetime victories gives her $6,074,580 in career earnings, including the $150,000 from Sunday's win.

Zenyatta, trained by John Shirreffs, faced five challengers in the 1 1/8-mile race. She settled into her usual last place position.

Setting the pace was Miss Silver Brook along with Cherryblossommiss. Running in third was Zardana followed by Will O'Way and 2-1 second choice St Trinians.

Ridden by Mike Smith, Zenyatta was about a dozen lengths off the lead as the field went up the backstretch. The 1-2 favorite, carrying 129 pounds, began to advance as the field entered the far turn.

Gaining ground on the outside around the turn was St Trinians and jockey Martin Garcia. On the final turn Zardana, also trained by Shirreffs, had a short lead as St Trinians moved into second and Zenyatta was quickly third in the six horse field.

Entering the stretch, St Trinians had the lead with the favorite second. In mid-stretch it appeared that the win streak was coming to an end. St Trinians still had the lead inside the furlong pole as Zenyatta continued her rally.

It was not until just before the wire that Zenyatta caught St Trinians and was able to get in front to win the by a half-length. Zardana finished third followed by Will O'Way, Miss Silver Brook and Cherryblossommiss.

The champion stopped the timer at 1:49.01 on Hollywood Park's synthetic. Last year she won the race in 1:48.15 and in 2008 covered the distance in 1:49.51.

"That mare ran her eyeballs out," Smith exclaimed. "She hit her real good stride about 100 yards out and I knew she had it."

"It's always a horse race, you never know what's going to happen," said the winning trainer.

Shirreffs notched his fifth win in the Vanity. Along with the three wins by Zenyatta, he also won with Hollywood Story (2006) and Manistique (1999).

Zenyatta began her 2010 campaign by winning the Santa Margarita Handicap at Santa Anita Park and followed with a 4 1/4-length win as the 1-20 favorite in Oaklawn Park's Apple Blossom Handicap.

The last two years Zenyatta has been voted champion older female and for 2009 finished second for Horse of the Year to Rachel Alexandra. She won the 2008 Breeders' Cup Ladies Classic and last year became the first female to capture the Breeders' Cup Classic.

Zenyatta returned $3.00 and $2.10, and St Trinians paid $2.20. There was no show wagering.

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FOOTBALL TRASH TALK

NFL Football Trash Talk

Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).

Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.

Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).

Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.

Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.

The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.

What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.

Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.

But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.

In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.