Zenyatta - better than this time last year
Three weeks from perfection.
While Zenyatta was taking a gentle canter around her home track of Hollywood Park her trainer, John Shirreffs, was in Keeneland to saddle Harmonious in the Grade One Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup, which she won.
The filly, already the winner of the American Oaks, would be a star in most other barns but there is room for only one queen and that position is filled - at least until the first week in November - when Zenyatta will defend her title in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs.
Not just her title but an undefeated record of 19 victories, 13 of which have come in Grade One races. But there has been one defeat, not on the track, but at the ballot box when Zenyatta lost out to Rachel Alexandra in the voting for last year’s Horse of the Year award. Even now there are those who suggest that she may not have done enough to warrant the verdict this year after Shirreffs elected to keep Zenyatta racing mainly in California and entirely against her own s*x.
Shirreffs is not a man of sweeping public emotions but he left little room for doubt that both he, and his mare, will be ready for judgement day on November 6th. Speaking to reporters at a press conference he said: “She’s as good or better as she was this time last year. She really hasn’t had any time off. She’s been at the racetrack training since she was a two-year-old. The main thing you have to do is keep her mentally happy and wanting to do it."
The mentality of the naysayers is that Zenyatta’s victory in last year’s Classic, at Santa Anita, was devalued because it came on the synthetic Pro-Ride surface, which in currently being replaced with a dirt track. They seize upon the fact that Zenyatta has raced just twice on America’s traditional surface as a sign that it could be a weak point when she runs at Churchill.
Which rather misses out the fact that she has a perfectly reasonable dirt pedigree and that the prominence of synthetic tracks in her record is nothing more than a product of where she is trained; in a State that had previously prohibited the use of dirt tracks on safety grounds. And Shirreffs certainly does not believe there are any grounds for thinking that there will be a problem. Quite the opposite.
“I think she prefers dirt,” he said. “We didn’t have an opportunity to run her very often on dirt, but one of the things I always tell people about dirt versus synthetics is that when horses run on dirt their toes really get into the track; their feet rotate so they can push off differently. It’s like when you get into a starting block on a track versus standing on the track flat-footed.”
When Zenyatta gets to the starting gate it will be against the likes of Blame, Quality Road and Lookin At Lucky, but Shirreffs said that the decision not to compete in open races was not a case of ducking the issue. “I really didn’t consider it at all because I always thought we would do the same thing as we did last year; hoping to have her peaked at the Breeders’ Cup Classic and not do anything that would cause any interference with that.”
There is little chance of Zenyatta suffering much interference on the track – she was the heaviest runner in last year’s Classic – and Shirreffs brought the house down when he added: “I just felt like I would prefer to run against the boys in the Classic, mainly because those races can be rough races. She’s a dainty little girl you know.”
However, while this is one girl who would not get mugged if she went out on Friday night, there is no doubt she has won Shirreffs’ heart and the countdown to the Classic is also the beginning of the end before she is finally – and definitely this time – retired from racing after the Breeders’ Cup. “I don’t even think about that,” he admitted, as he then explained the difference that the mare has made to his life. “Walking to the paddock with Zenyatta is such a special experience. As soon as the crowd sees her they start yelling, ‘Zenyatta, Zenyatta. Yeah, yeah, Zenyatta, Zenyatta.’ And you’re walking over and it’s such an amazing feeling. Everyone loves your horse and loves you; it’s such a great feeling. It will be an emotional experience.”
The one emotion that Shirreffs has not had to contend with yet is the disappointment of defeat but he would prefer that than to have missed all that has gone before during this year, after Zenyatta returned to training following one of the shortest retirements in sporting history. “It’s not the end of the world. Giving her the opportunity to achieve something that seems almost unattainable is more important.”
The Horse of the Year title became unattainable when the vote swung the way of Rachel Alexandra last time and some think it may happen again. “We were very disappointed. I thought they had a unique opportunity because of the situation where they could have split it. I think it was absolutely fair that Rachel Alexandra won the Eclipse Award; I thought that was great. But I thought Zenyatta was equally as great,” Shirreffs said, adding of the possibility of a similar outcome this year. “I would think it would be almost too much. For what she does for the industry for the last three years, I would say that would be a real slap in the face. Not only on performance but what’s she’s done for racing.”
One more winning performance would surely put Zenyatta out of sight of the competition and Shirreffs knows that he is three weeks away from the completion of his twenty-twenty vision.
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