Legend of filly Zenyatta still dazzles her fans

The 2009 Breeders’ Cup Classic winner, who stood up to the boys while chalking up many victories in dramatic fashion, turns 20

Horse racing never wanted the Zenyatta story to end, never wanted her prerace dance steps to go away and her improbable last-tofirst mad dashes to stop. But time intrudes and the Zenyatta story has drifted off, needing a milestone to rekindle the memories.

A milestone, indeed. Zenyatta turns 20 years old Jan. 1.

Actually, as in many things in the sport, even that is a little confusing. All thoroughbreds turn a year older on the first day of the new year. Zenyatta was born April 1, 2004. She was the daughter of Street Cry, who fathered a Kentucky Derby winner named Street Sense but had no greater moment as a sire than Zenyatta’s birth.

Zenyatta was owned by the recently deceased Jerry Moss and his wife, Ann, who did the unthinkable by letting her run a year longer than the norm. She was at the top of her game when the Mosses called a small gathering of sportswriters to their box at Santa Anita to tell them they had decided to race their wonder mare one more year, her sixth. She was worth a Brink’s truck of money for her breeding rights and the odds of an injury coming along soon were great. But the Mosses said racing deserved to see as much of her as possible.

The Mosses purchased the big filly in 2005 at a September auction at Keeneland. They had taken the advice of bloodstock agent David Ingordo, whose mother, Dottie, ran their racing operation and still does. For bidding purposes, the then-unnamed Zenyatta was Hip No. 703, and when the bidding stopped at $60,000 and the filly went to the Mosses, David Ingordo was so stunned at the bargain price that he hustled over to take a look, fearing that somehow he had given them the wrong horse or there had been a mix-up on the bid number.

With great relief, he saw that the Mosses and his mother had purchased the horse he had singled out. The only reason he could think of for why the bargain price stuck was that she was such a big horse, she might have scared off some buyers.

Also, she had entered the bidding ring with a skin rash. The size of horse was a plus for Ingordo, because he knew the filly eventually would be trained by John Shirreffs, Dottie’s husband and his stepfather, who liked to train large horses.

The Mosses named her Zenyatta, which was half of the name of a 1980 hit album by British rock group the Police. Jerry Moss partnered with hit-record musician Herb Alpert to form A&M Records. The Police album, produced by A&M, was called Zenyatta Mondatta. It featured the hit song “Don’t Stand So Close to Me.” It became No. 1 in several countries, sold 3 million albums in the United States and millions more worldwide. The words “Zenyatta” and “Mondatta” were just made up. The horse named for the album turned out to be very real. Eventually, she brought to horse racing a warmth and attraction that even PETA wouldn’t deny.

Zenyatta was a slow starter. She didn’t race until late in her third year. She was too big (ending up racing eventually at 17 hands and about 1,245 pounds) and too slow developing, so the Triple Crown, for 3-year-olds only, was never on the table for the Mosses and Shirreffs. But once Shirreffs got her to the track, a maiden special at Hollywood Park on Nov. 22, 2007, racing was about to get three years of shock and awe.

In that first race, with 11 competitors, she broke last. After a half-mile, she was in 10th place, which raised some eyebrows when she won by three lengths. It was an early sneak preview. The end of a horse race is usually thrilling for race fans, even if it’s only a $2 bet at stake. But what the sport was about to witness with Zenyatta defied description. Other horses shot out of the gate. Zenyatta dawdled. Other horses scrambled and jockeyed for position all the way around. Zenyatta stay removed from the fray, sidling along like an outsider amused by all the foolishness. When it was time to run, she kind of swerved around them, usually stayed mostly clear to the outside and just ran past them.

This eventually led to two of the most famous scenes in the history of the sport.

Breeders’ Cup Classic, Santa Anita Park — 2009

It was Nov. 7. The annual richest day in horse racing arrived with the buzz about Zenyatta. She had won the Breeders’ Cup Ladies Classic the year before and now she was going to take on the boys in the main event. These weren’t just scrappy kids of the same age, like the Kentucky Derby.

Many of her competitors had raced a lot, won a lot and thrived on the macho pushing and shoving around the oval. The Breeders’ Cup Classic attracted some horses as old as 4 and 5 — tough, ornery veterans. The field included more than a dozen stakes winners, as well as a Kentucky Derby winner and a Belmont Stakes winner.

But the favorite was Zenyatta, even though she was a mare and racing in her 5-year-old season. There was $5 million set to go to the winner. There were 58,825 in attendance. Creaky old Santa Anita was about to have a resurrection. The Great Race Place would be great again, at least for a day.

At the starting gate, Zenyatta was hesitant. Was she not used to having all those males around?

She finally loaded, but then Quality Road acted up at the gate, causing more delay, and finally was scratched. Quality Road later became an interesting side note in the Zenyatta story.

When the horses eventually broke from the gate, Zenyatta, as usual, dawdled. With a quarter of a mile to go in the 1¼-mile race, she was still about seven lengths back. Almost casually, veteran jockey Mike Smith steered Zenyatta to the outside and away she went.

Santa Anita went bonkers. The word “crescendo” was created for moments like this. The noise soared like a jet airplane on takeoff. Seldom have 58,000 people, uniformly this vocally delighted and expressive, produced such an ear-piercing sound.

Smith, who had made the dash down this homestretch thousands of times, was stunned. “I never heard anything like that,” he said. “The ground was shaking like an earthquake and there wasn’t one.”

In the track announcer’s booth, Trevor Denman — who knew enough to keep his eye on Zenyatta, even though she looked more beaten than usual — saw it coming and stirred the fans’ emotional pot.

“Zenyatta is flying on the grandstand side,” he intoned, with quickly turned-up volume.

Then came the unrehearsed and classic cadence-call finish, one that forever will be his signature call and Zenyatta’s moment.

As she was about to cross the line by a length in front of Gio Ponti, Denman defined and amplified history: “This. Is. Un-be-lievable.” The rest was drowned out by the sound of a shaking grandstand and the jet airplane screech of 58,000 people.

Denman finished, his volume still turned way up: “What a performance, one we’ll never forget.”

No one on hand would disagree. As the horses cooled down, Shirreffs met Smith near the finish line and instructed him to take Zenyatta back up the home stretch near the grandstand so people could see her up close. The usual procedure was to head to the winners’ circle, but Shirreffs wanted as many as possible to get as close as they could to this magnificent horse. Smith did as he was told.

And the still-hyped crowd loved it. Handkerchiefs waved, grown men cried and fathers and mothers put their children on their shoulders so they could get a better look at this wonder of the thoroughbred world.

She had carved out her place in racing history. She was the female Secretariat. He had thrilled them by winning with wide margins. She thrilled them by winning with great drama.