SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY, June 30, 2009--For the current darlings of Thoroughbred racing, it’s game on. Unfortunately it’s not the game anyone wants to see.

In contemporary racing history, the game we’re seeing played out now goes back to War Admiral and Seabiscuit, the battle of East vs. West.

In the older version of the game, the man from out West, Charles S. Howard, believed he had the best horse in the country. So he shipped Seabiscuit everywhere, taking on and beating all comers.

Thoroughbred racing, college football and boxing were the most popular sports of their day. But it took the egocentric connections of the country’s two best horses a long time to reach a compromise and create a sports event for the ages..

Samuel D. Riddle was the owner of the Triple Crown champion, leading candidate for Horse of the Year 1937. Riddle believed it unnecessary to accept a challenge leveled by an upstart, some nouveau riche car dealer from California.

Finally, however, Howard pushed the right button, the public clamored for the matchup and the press played it up big time. The result was the most famous renewal of the Pimlico Special ever.

There are similarities now. Justly or not, it’s the three-year-old Rachel Alexandra which, in the minds of many racing fans and the Horse of the Year voters who vote in the weekly NTRA thoroughbred poll see Rachel Alexandra as this country’s leading race horse.

There are reasons for the perception: Rachel Alexandra was purchased by the high profile owner of Curlin, Horse of the Year 2007 and 2008, who kept his promise to raise the filly‘s profile by seeking her rightful place in racing history.

As such, she was entered in the Preakness Stakes and, not only did she win, she was ridden by Kentucky Derby-winning jockey Calvin Borel, who opted to ride her instead of the Derby champion because he believed the filly was the best horse in the country.

Then, in her next start, she went out and ran the fastest Mother Goose Stakes in history, faster than at least four winners of the old filly triple crown, by a margin six lengths farther than Ruffian’s victory in the same race.

Wide margins, a combined 39-½ lengths, are extremely rare on the level at which Kentucky Oaks and Mother Goose fillies compete. She dominates the competition and beats the clock, too.

Zenyatta is already a champion. She’s never lost a race, which counts for a hell of a lot, and she’s won virtually all of them with dominating style.

And that includes the 2008 Apple Blossom in which Zenyatta defeated a defending champion, Ginger Punch, among others, most impressively proving she’s more than an All Weather wonder.

But that’s what makes the decision of her connections not to leave California, again, all the more quizzical. Then there’s something else.

Thus far, the camps surrounding both fillies have eschewed trash talk. Jackson’s only knock has been the “plastic” surface at Santa Anita. In fact, he even said he doesn’t hold it against any owner for doing what they think is best for their horse.

Neither did Zenyatta’s owner, Jerry Moss, who said only that no one would dictate the terms of a future meeting between two females that have dominated the racing landscape in 2009.

After the defense of her Vanity title, Moss said he’d like the two fillies to meet somewhere, that it would be good for the fans, for racing. On Sunday he said he’d like to challenge his filly a bit more, too, like Jackson wanting to define her place in history.

And this was after trainer John Shirreffs said they probably would leave California at some time this year.

The trash talking was left to turf writers, Horse of the Year voters who favored one side or another, coming down mostly along geographical lines. The tenor, it seemed, was beginning to shift.

Suddenly, Shirreffs ended any speculation saying that Zenyatta would race next in the Clement Hirsch, now run under allowance conditions. If they stuck to their original plan, she need not carry the grandstand again.

It’s apparent that Jackson’s making the decisions for Rachel while Shirreffs seems the prime mover of Zenyatta’s future.

Surprisingly, between Sunday and Monday evening, the Moss message changed: They would stick to the original Breeders’ Cup schedule which, if all goes according to Hoyle, would result in undefeated career victory 14 on Breeders' Cup day, a modern record for major race horses.

What changed Moss’s mind?

At Monday’s press conference previewing the upcoming 2009 Saratoga racing season, New York Racing Association President Charlie Hayward, playing to the local media, good-humouredly referred to Del Mar as the “minor league Saratoga of the West.”

Sometime later, Chief Operating Officer Hal Handel picked up the ball, lightheartedly identifying Del Mar as “our Triple A affiliate.”

Non-racetrackers who may be reading this need to know: From who’s dating whom, to how many positives any racing department might be stonewalling at the time, there are no secrets on the racetrack.

And for a game that demands a sense of humor from its participants, it’s a bear market. Suddenly, Zenyatta's possible appearance in the Personal Ensign, Ruffian or Beldame doesn’t seems impossible.

Moss has second thoughts now, recalling how his Derby-winning Giacomo freaked out in New York’s despised detention barn, finishing seventh in the 2005 Belmont.

It seems certain that the best way to make a meeting between the two moot is for either filly to step out of their division and meet males, Rachel for a second time.

Should the three-year-old filly beat the Derby and Belmont winners in the Travers, it would be game, set and Horse of the Year match, even if Zenyatta were to win the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Unless, of course, they met after the Breeders’ Cup.

Moss said he would consider meeting Rachel Alexandra somewhere after the Breeders’ Cup. But if she wins #14, that’s unlikely to happen. The bottom line is that Moss and Jackson have to make like Howard and Riddle and find a way to make it happen.

It’s the only race the fans really want to see. If it doesn’t happen, what remains of racing’s image as a sport in this era would take a hit from which it might never recover.