Posts Tagged ‘milady handicap’

By Ray Paulick
Mr. and Mrs. Jerome Moss’ Zenyatta kept her perfect record intact in Saturday’s Grade 2 Milady Handicap at Hollywood Park, rallying from last in the field of six fillies and mares to win by 1 3/4 lengths over her John Shirreffs-trained stablemate Life Is Sweet, with Allicansayis Wow third.

Jockey Mike Smith never went to the whip on the 5-year-old daughter of Street Cry, the 2008 Breeders’ Cup Ladies Classic winner and Eclipse Award champion who was making her 2009 debut. The Kentucky-bred mare was taken far off the early pace set by Gambler’s Justice, attempted to move through along the rail past Life Is Sweet down the backstretch, but jockey Garrett Gomez closed the gap, forcing Smith to check slightly and take Zenyatta back and around Life Is Sweet.

Smith asked Zenyatta to pick it up around the three-eighths pole, and the long-striding mare burst toward the front in a flash as she has done in so many of her previous victories. Once the win was secured in the final furlong, Smith eased up on Zenyatta and she cruised to the wire. Life Is Sweet got through on the rail all the way, edging a hard-trying Allicansayis Wow for the place.

This was the 10th consecutive win by Zenyatta and a repeat victory in the Milady. She covered the 1 1/16 miles on the Cushion Track in 1:42.30. Early fractions were :23.79, :47.14, 1:11.32 and 1:35.96. She paid $2.40 to win as the heavy favorite. Click here for the Milady chart and here for video of the race.

"We were just playing some serious jockey games out there," Smith told TVG’s Christina Olivares after the win. "It was great. It was all clean and fair and not to hurt the horses any. (Gomez)  was just trying to keep me out. … I coulda shot myself in the foot there, but she’s so handy that whenever he did come over I just eased back on the pedal, she backed up for me and I got to her outside and it was pretty much over then."

"I really wasn’t happy with the way she was traveling down the backstretch," Gomez said of Life Is Sweet, a full sister by Storm Cat to champion filly Sweet Catomine, owned and bred by Mr. and Mrs. Marty Wygod. "Usually she is taking me somewhere and she wasn’t taking me today. … My filly ran a respectable race, but she didn’t run the races she was running (at Santa Anita, where she won three consecutive graded stakes)."

Gomez said after he forced Smith to go around him Zenyatta passed him "in three jumps. It was unbelievable. For a big mare to have that kind of acceleration power, it was quite impressive. She’s a huge amazon that covers so much ground."

"There was a little games playing," Jerry Moss told TVG, though he said he wasn’t aware of it during the live running of the race. "Whatever happened, happened and the race is done and we’re happy with the outcome."

Zenyatta began her career with a maiden victory at Hollywood Park Nov. 22, 2007, going 6 1/2 furlongs. She followed that with an allowance win the next month, and has run in Grade 1 or 2 races ever since. Her 2008 ledger includes victories in (chronologically) the El Encino, Apple Blossom Handicap, Milady Handicap, Vanity Handicap, Clement L. Hirsch Handicap, Lady’s Secret, and Breeders’ Cup Ladies Classic. She was entered to race at Churchill Downs in the Louisville Distaff May 1 but was scratched when the track came up sloppy.

She carried high weight of 126 pounds in the Milady, conceding from four to 14 pounds to her overmatched rivals.

Zenyatta, a $60,000 yearling purchase, has won over $2.2 million. She was bred in the name of Eric Kronfeld’s Maverick Productions Ltd.

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

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