Horse Racing Fantasy Community

Horse racing fans are very often movie buffs, and as such cannot deny the similarity between the Eclipse Awards and the Academy Awards; what makes the 2009 racing and film awards so wonderful is that both are likely to bestow major awards on females in what are primarily male-dominated businesses. In film, a female director, Kathryn Bigelow, is poised to win an Oscar for her work at the helm of the critical sensation The Hurt Locker. She will be one of the five directors nominated for the prestigious Best Director Academy Award, and the only female. In addition, the film itself will be nominated for Best Picture as well, and among all the Awards the Motion Picture Academy gives out, Best Picture is the grand-daddy of them all. In the film, Jeremy Renner portrays Sergeant First Class William James, and his job is very simple, and very dangerous: he disarms bombs in Iraq. Considered something of a maverick, and he employs unorthodox and, some members of his unit think reckless, methods, but he loves his job, and he is very good at it. The film shows how dangerous life is for miliary personnel in the middle east in general and Iraq in particular, but it also examines how men like James are passionate about their jobs, and despite the danger, attack each task as if their very lives depended on it. In fact, they do.
The corresponding award to Best Picture in horseracing is definitely Horse of the Year, and like the film industry, a female is going to earn that Eclipse Award for 2009. The odds are probable that Rachel Alexandra, the amazing 3-year-old filly, will become just the 7th female to ever win Horse of the Year. However, even if she doesn't win, the only other horse with any chance at all is the great mare Zenyatta.
Rachel Alexandra went undefeated in 8 starts in 2009, with incredible wins littered among those 8. She totally destroyed fillies by a record margin of over 20 lengths in the Kentucky Oaks, then became the first filly in over 80 years to win the Preakness when she held off a late charge by Mine That Bird, beat Belmont Stakes winner Summer Bird in the Haskell, and then defeated older males in the Woodward.
Zenyatta cannot boast a record of accomplishment as consistently dazzling as that of Rachel Alexandra; no horse in 2009 can. However, the one thing she does have over Rachel Alexandra is a triumph on the final and biggest stage horseracing had to offer in 2009, and that of course was her amazing come from behind win against a fine field of male horses in the 2009 Breeders' Cup Classic to become the first female in the 26-year history of the event to win.
Whether it be in film or horseracing, females have demonstrated absolute, and historic, excellence in 2009, and will be showered with awards as a result!