Zenyatta retired from racing
Zenyatta has been officially retired from racing – and this time it is for good.
A year ago there was the remarkable turnaround when Zenyatta was supposedly at the end of her racing days after her victory in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita. There were retirement parties and the full works; and then Jerry and Ann Moss decided that the story still had a few chapters to run.
The final pages did not yield the ending that they, trainer John Shirreffs, jockey Mike Smith and most of the 73,000 packed into Churchill Downs two weeks ago craved, when she was beaten a head by Blame in this year’s renewal of the Classic. Having taken a hasty decision 12 months ago, the Mosses had said that they would be taking their time over a determination on whether her racing career would extend into a sixth season. Now they have declared that she has indeed been retired to paddocks.
Retirement had always seemed the most likely option after Zenyatta’s run in the Classic but there was the option of a tilt at the $10milion Dubai World Cup, run at Meydan in March on the synthetic Tapeta surface. It could have been considered a gamble but might have been worth taking as the field that she would have met would have been of a similar profile to the one she beat at Santa Anita last year.
There was a thought developing in the minds of both Shirreffs and Smith that Zenyatta was becoming a little “cute” in terms of her training regime at Hollywood Park. That could have been elevated by an early switch to Meydan – where the climate at that time of year is not that dissimilar to California - and even a race before the World Cup, as Curlin did in 2008. And the World Cup might not have precluded a stallion covering for this season. Japanese champion Vodka was retired after running at the Dubai Carnival on March 4th this year, and was sent to be covered by Sea The Stars at Gilltown Stud in Ireland two weeks later.
Zenyatta will be shipped from California to William S. Farish’s Lane's End Farm in Kentucky early in December to begin her next career as a broodmare but breeding plans have yet to be decided. Before Zenyatta leaves California she is to be paraded before the public at Hollywood Park on December 5th. Expect a full house; and word is that Lane's End will be investigating ways of allowing Zenyatta's fans to visit in the future.
“We think Lane’s End will do a great job with her,” Jerry Moss said. “They’re good people, and I’m happy we could work something out with them. We’ve talked about her public following with Bill Farish, and we’ll abide by what the farm’s requirements are as far as security for her and how they want to handle that as it concerns her fans.”
As the statisticians close the book on her achievements they will duly note that Zenyatta won 19 of her 20 races, with her only loss coming in the Classic and that she retired as North America’s leading filly or mare, with career earnings of $7,304,580. They will also record that 13 of her 17 stakes wins came in Grade One races - including that Classic win in 2009 and Ladies Classic in 2008 –and that she received the Eclipse Award as champion older female in 2008-09.
None of which goes anywhere recording the impact that this remarkable mare had on the sport, something that is unlikely to be rewarded when this year’s Eclipse awards come around. She was recently named in Oprah Winfrey’s Power List for the top 10 most influential women in 2010 – first time a horse has ever been on that list – so much for the concept of dumb animals. To appreciate the impact that Zenyatta has had on American racing you had to throw away the formbook and just watch the story of one her races unfold before your eyes.
Take the Clement L Hirsch Stakes in August. This was a Grade One race and yet it was more like a fan club gathering. She came into the parade ring, with her trademark high-stepping gait, to greater applause than most horses receive for passing the post first at Del Mar.
There was even a Zenyatta tribute video which was played on the course in the minutes before the race, which was probably just what the riders of the other five runners needed before they were loaded into the starting gates. But that was life with Zenyatta, including the cliff-hanger finish as she got up close home to beat Rinterval by a neck.
That brinksmanship was always a hostage to fortune and finally caught up with Zenyatta and Smith in the Classic, a race which will remain seared into the memory of those who witnessed it. Even the preliminaries seemed more in keeping with a coronation than the start of a horse race, the crowd must have been lined at least 10 deep either side of the route to the saddling boxes and parade ring.
The race itself can probably be rated as the most analysed – and argued – two minutes and 2.28 seconds of racing action from the last 20 years. Smith blamed himself while Shirreffs took a more phlegmatic view. "Everybody always blames themselves for something. You just try to figure out what could you have done differently, etc - but you have to turn the page. She had a great career."
John Gosden, who used to train in California, seemed to think that this might just have been an accident waiting to find somewhere to happen. "Extraordinary race, the Classic," Gosden said at the time. "Poor old Mike Smith, but she didn't face that dirt. It's a slightly different ball game - on the synthetics you can spot them that distance, it's not quite so easy on the dirt. She has been running in small fields and this was a big field. Christ, she was a long way back. It's her style - he does know her pretty well.
"I've seen them win from a long way back but never quite that far. I hope she gets Horse of the Year."
That would seem unlikely. The Horse of the Year award voters – whose constituency is made up from members of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, the National Turf Writers Association and the Daily Racing Form - are likely to be swayed only by that defeat in the Classic rather than the fact this mare has made more of an impact on the general public than other horse in America, with the possible exception of Barbaro, since the days of Secretariat when they retire to consider their deliberation.
The official ballot is likely to favour Blame. Give the public a say and it would be Zenyatta by a landslide.
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