ZENYATTA … A PERFECT 10, WINS THE MILADY
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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Tags: Breeders' Cup, eclipse award, Hollywood Park, jerry moss, john shirreffs, ladies' classic, milady handicap, Paulick Report, Ray Paulick, zenyatta
May 23rd, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Yahoo!!!!
Don’t like the hype starting with Zen and RA, but what a great race! Didn’t think she could do it. from the start I saw, but holee karap! I love a happy ending. And a 5 yo mare…love ya’ and all the connections!
May 23rd, 2009 at 7:41 pm
The third place finisher, beaten only a couple of lenghts, was a horse I wouldn’t confidently back in an average European Listed race. Zenyatta has a lot of potential, and her move on the turn was impressive, but we’ve known that for at least a year. I could have puked when Vic Stauffer, the track announcer, called her “the Champion” on the backstretch. Shirreffs hid her again, she won again. In a field barely worth mentioning, of which the best horse, according to your article, didn’t deliver. I have trouble finding the silver lining here. Wasted potential, that’s all Zenyatta is.
May 23rd, 2009 at 7:42 pm
She is incredible.
May 23rd, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Wasted potential? Is that what undefeated 10 for 10, Eclipse champs look like to you?
May 23rd, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Malcer…maybe you were watching the wrong race. I saw a champion come back from a six months’ off carrying top weight and beating a grade one winner handily. You wnt big margins? I don’t think trainers like big margins when there are handicap races down the road.
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:08 pm
What is Malcer’s problem? She IS a champion. I can’t imagine putting “wasted potential” and Zenyatta is the same sentence. What a magnificent mare!
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:24 pm
To know Zenyatta is to love her. If you haven’t watched her post parade performance before, do so the next time she runs, it’s almost as good as watching her race. She does this dance and march thing in the paddock even schooling, and in the post parade she is so fun to watch. Then comes the stop and pose for the cameras, a photographer’s and a fan’s dream! Rachel Alexandra you are something special, but Zenyatta’s got my heart.
May 23rd, 2009 at 10:09 pm
I love Zenyatta in the paddock and post parade. I agree with Vicki that her dance is almost better than the race, reminiscent of Seattle Slew’s War Dance, only funnier.
May 23rd, 2009 at 10:20 pm
my guess is that mcler has never owned a race horse much less a good one!
May 24th, 2009 at 12:39 am
Zenyatta does her version of the Spanish Walk in the paddock and post parade. Not only is she endearing because of her immense talent, but because of her quirky personality, too. If she weren’t going to be busy making bazillion dollar babies when she’s through racing, she’d be a lot of fun to train in dressage.
That Smith never went to the whip is unbelievable.
May 24th, 2009 at 5:09 am
My problem wasn’t the winning margin or the style she won in, it was that we already knew she was vastly superior to this field. That’s what I mean by “wasted potential” (I’ve written a post about a similar subject three weeks back, which further discusses the point). And I would give her connections a break for the long layoff, but she was Milady-bound even before Shirreffs scratched her from an equally inferior field in KY just because the ground was slightly off-ish, and for all we know they don’t plan to try a real challenge next time (like the Hollywood Gold Cup, July 11).
Those who think that nothing can be gained for the sport by running an outstanding filly in open company have obviously been asleep for the last two weeks.
Who cares about a perfect record. Secretariat was a 16-for-21, Seabiscuit a 33-for-89, somehow both did far more for the promotion of our sport than Zenyatta. Overdose could have easily compiled a 20-for-20 record with an average 10-length winning margin by now had he continued racing exclusively in Hungary, but his connections opted to take on a challenge, making him a national icon and saving their nation’s only racecourse in the process (and he still is unbeaten at 12).
So yes, I’ve never owned a racehorse, but if I owned one of the best racehorses in America I’d be curious to know if she was #1 or #4. Not because I consider #4 to be a disappointment, but because this kind of sportsmanship would be what led me to own a racehorse in the first place.
May 24th, 2009 at 5:24 am
Typical harping about owners not doing this not doing that, hiding from the “real” competitors, yada yada yada. It is difficult to get a horse to win two in a row regardless of their class, unless you own racehorses you have no idea how hard it is to keep them healthy, happy and interested in racing, less alone winning Grade I and II’s. She carried 126 pounds yesterday, how many male horses carry that much anymore after the classics are done?
Shirreffs does exactly what any true horseman would do; keep himself in the best of company and his horse in the worst. If you think that’s a new tactic, you know nothing of horse racing or its long history.
May 24th, 2009 at 11:49 am
@zed: We can agree to disagree, but I’d appreciate if you could be a little less patronizing. I don’t usually accept people’s opinion as gospel because they own horses, I’ve personally known owners who didn’t know the first thing about racing (which is fine, that’s what trainers are for).
As it happens, my knowledge of horse racing and it’s long history is good enough that I realize it’s not a new tactic, but fortunately there have always been horsemen with a different mindset, and if memory serves right “my best horse can beat your best horse” was the very spirit those English noblemen founded the sport on.
May 25th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Malcer, it was her first race of the year! C’MON!
May 25th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Breeders Cup - Zenyatta vs.Rachel Alexandra
I love when mares crush these “great” fillies, and when she comes out to Santa Anita to race on Pro-Ride, Rachel Alexandra will get crushed.
Pro-Ride seems to suck the speed out these quality animals
Curlin was the last Pro Ride victim. Breeders Cup Classic was all about the europeans last year at Santa Anita. If you don’t race “like a turf horse” on that Pro Ride surface and you don’t wait until the last 3/16 of a mile to start running, then your done! Put a fork in ya!
June 2nd, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Malcer you’re dead on with this horse. 10 for 10 is impressive however I would love to see her against the heavy weights.