Zenyatta faces five in Lady’s Secret Stakes at Hollywood Park
The final run-in to the Breeders’ Cup Classic starts this weekend and defending champion Zenyatta faces a field of five for the Grade One Lady's Secret Stakes at Hollywood Park.
It would be hard to envisage this being anything but 19th straight career win for Zenyatta, who has won the last two renewals of this race when it was run at Santa Anita, and she will break from stall six, ridden by regular jockey Mike Smith.
This main opposition should come from Rinterval, who was just a neck second to Zenyatta in the Grade One Clement Hirsch Stakes at Del Mar last month. In that race Rinterval may have been able to set easy fractions, which meant that Zenyatta had to to play catch-up in the home stretch, but the likes of Emmy Darling and Moon de French could mean that this is a more solid pace this time. Not that Smith is unduly worried. Talking to the Daily Racing Form, he was in little doubt that Zenyatta is building to her peak at just the right time.
“She seems to get good at this time of year the last few years,” he said. “The way she’s going, she seems like she can do it again this year.”
The Grade One Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park dates back to 1919 but even this prestigious prize now stands as much as a step towards Churchill Downs in November as it does a race in its own right. Blame proved himself to be a contender for the Classic when he beat Quality Road by a head in the Grade One Whitney at Saratoga in August.
The four-year-old, who is unbeaten in his last five starts, is one of eight runners where the main threat is likely to come from Fly Down, beaten just a nose by Alfeet Express in the Grade One Travers Stakes at Saratoga five weeks ago, and Rail Trip, a half-length second to Awesome Gem in the Grade One Hollywood Gold Cup in July.
Blame will be running over 10 furlongs for the first time but his trainer, Al Stall, is in confident mood. "I’m really pleased with the way Blame is coming into the race," he said. “He's carrying more weight, and I couldn't be happier with the way he's been training.
"I don't think the distance is a question. Everything he has done, and factoring in his pedigree and his style, I think points to a mile-and-a -quarter. We've been looking forward to a mile and quarter since last year actually. So I don't think we have much to worry about as far as him staying the trail.”
The trail to the Classic rarely detours to Indiana but Lookin At Lucky will have his prep in the Grade Two Indiana Derby at Hoosier Park.
Lookin At Lucky has become the leading three-year-old colt in training. His Grade One victories in the Preakness Stakes and Haskell Invitational puts him in a now seemingly impregnable position as all the credible opposition has fallen by the wayside. First Drosselmeyer, the Belmont Stakes winner, was sidelined with an ankle injury, then Super Saver, the Kentucky Derby winner who had flopped in three runs since, was found to have sustained bone bruises in all four legs and last week Afleet Express was ruled out for the rest of the year with a leg injury.
However, Lookin At Lukcy is unlikely to find much to push him in this race with the most interesting rival being Uareoutlaw, last year’s champion juvenile in Brazil, who makes his American debut.
Lookin At Lucky was off the track after his win in the Haskell with illness and his trainer, Bob Baffert, has been a little reticent over just how close his horse is to peak fitness.
Looking at this race he may not have to be.
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