Beating the boys - filly style

It was another tough week for women, we (and our daughters) have been once again put in the position of sacrificing our rights for the good of others. But, I'm not going to write about that - other than to say that if we had more women represented on both sides of the aisle in the House and Senate, we might not be having these debates, or making these sacrifices that future generations are going to have to undo. 

Instead, I'd like to talk about Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra.

Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra are two race horses (fillies).  Fillies are female horses that are too young to be called mares. Rachel Alexandra won the Preakness Stakes in 2009, making her only the 11th filly to do so in over 100 years of racing.  Just last weekend Zenyatta became the first filly/mare to win the Breeder's Cup in 25 years.  Both fillies are in the running to be Horse of the Year.

Now I had to do a bit of research on this story as I'm not up on my horse racing lore.  After all, my first reaction when my dad said "the Filly won" last weekend, was to wonder if he missed the final game of the World Series.  But, then I became intrigued as to why this was such big news.  I hadn't realized that the winner's circle in horseracing was mostly an old boy's club.  And, here were some of the reasons I found explaining why fillies don't make good race horses:

• Fillies are naturally slower than the boys.
• Fillies get intimidated racing against the boys
• There isn't a pipeline of fillies as less fillies are born in every generation.

Well, now we have two fillies up for Horse of the Year.  Guess I'm not buying those arguments anymore on the horse track, in politics, or in the office.

Fun Fact:  Zenyatta was named after The Police Album, Zenyatta Mondatta (Zenyatta's owner Jerry Moss was the co-founder of A&M Records and helped launch the band, The Police). For more on Zenyatta's victory, click here.