Mike Smith: I’d give up everything to win on Zenyatta
Mike Smith needs just two more winners at the Breeders’ Cup to tie with Jerry Bailey on the all-time list.
He could add them to a career total that is close to 5,000 winners now. And there is quality to go with the quantity – Smith completed his Triple Crown collection when Drosselmeyer won this year’s Belmont Stakes to sit alongside the victories of Prairie Bayou in the 1993 Preakness Stakes and Giacomo in the 2005 Kentucky Derby - but it is the next big winner that could count more than all the others.
Not simply because Smith maintains the forward-thinking attitude that keeps a sportsman at the top of his game but because this could be the career-defining moment. Every jockey starts out dreaming of the signature horse, one with which they form the partnership that is recorded in history.
Smith knows that his name will never be mentioned again without that of Zenyatta being a second away and he likes that just fine. The mare is the star of this year’s Breeders’ Cup meeting, where she defends her title in the Classic on Saturday night, and even when she was simply working on the main track on Wednesday she drew a crowd that underlined her celebrity status.
“It's been overwhelming, pretty cool, everybody wants to know about her,” Smith said. “Everyone wants to ask how she is, just about every talk show has been talking about her and I don't mind one little bit. In fact, if people don't talk about her, I'll start up the conversation.”
It is now getting close to the time when the talking has to stop but one topic of conversation has been the way that John Shirreffs, Zenyatta’s trainer, used two stable companions in tag-team gallops to prepare the mare in recent weeks. “It was just to keep her concentrating to the end,”
Smith explained. “She gets by other horses so easy and then those big ears prick up, so having the two just kept her occupied. We're both getting cuter, I guess.”
The thought occupying the minds of both Shirreffs and Smith is Zenyatta’s unbeaten record and the fact that she has been cutting it close in recent races. The late-charge tactics are the best to use but come loaded with risk, as when Zenyatta looked all out to beat St Trinians in the Vanity Handicap at Hollywood Park in June.
“Coming to the Breeders’ Cup undefeated means so much more, but the pressure builds up with each race,” Smith admitted. “The trouble is that, with those giant strides of hers, she can get there too soon and you don't want that because she thinks ‘OK I've done my job’.
“You’ve got to hold her steady but she waits for me to ask her. And, you know what? You never seem to get to the bottom of her. One time I did think ‘oh oh, I've left her too much to do’ was against St Trinians –but we got there anyway.
“But what's remarkable is that her recovery time is so short. By the time I've picked her up at the end of the race and we're ready to come back in, she’s ready to go again and for a horse with her stamina that's incredible. The extra eighth in the Classic should suit her - I think that's her ideal distance."
Zenyatta can go the distance in more ways than one. Last year, when she became the first filly or mare to win America’s richest race, she weighed in heaver than any of the males in the race and Smith believes that she can dominate others by her mere presence. “She's 17.1 [hand high] but for a horse that big she runs like a gazelle. She's so well balanced and agile you can move her with your little finger on the reins. And when you ask her to catch one up, it's like ‘now’ - it's over in a few strides. She gives me confidence because she's done it all. She makes my job a lot easier, we can go round the others, we can go through them, we can go in and around.
"I think other horses are intimidated by her. Some mornings on the gallops, when she stands there it's almost as if she can look over the grandstand, she stands that tall. But it's going to be tough, Lookin At Lucky, Quality Road and Blame,” he said, adding “three tough ones.”
Smith is not exactly a soft touch – nearly 30 years as a jockey and an honours degree from the university of hard knocks testify to that – but he also knows that his greatest day will almost certainly hasten a parting with the likelihood that Zenyatta will be retired. “She's ready, I'm ready
- this is it. If she wins, it'll be the happiest and saddest day of my life because I'll hate to see her go.
“I think it would be incredible for our sport, I think it will be one of the most incredible things in any sport if she wins. I'd give up all my wins, the Triple Crown races, everything, just to have this one.”
Who needs two winners when one will really do?
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