by Jeff Lowe
With 12 wins down, Zenyatta will get a chance to match and perhaps surpass Personal Ensign’s unbeaten record over the next month, beginning with the Lady’s Secret Stakes (G1) on Saturday and then the Breeders’ Cup World Championships in early November.
The Street Cry (Ire) mare’s most recent start was her closest, a head victory in the Clement L. Hirsch Stakes (G1) on August 2 at Del Mar that left trainer John Shirreffs wondering if she has a limit or if there is anything she cannot do.
“They go 1:13 and change the first three quarters and she’s trailing the field and somehow fires an unbelievable final quarter and catches the field,” Shirreffs said on Tuesday. “She does things just ordinary horses don’t do.
“Most horses start stretching out and covering ground, covering ground, and it seems like there is a limit to what they can do. With Zenyatta, she just finds more strides. She gets two inches more, an inch more, the stride keeps lengthening and lengthening and she keeps powering her way to the wire. A lot of times a horse that comes from where she does, they make a big run and they get to be second. She just runs right through the wire.”
Personal Ensign closed her career by catching Kentucky Derby (G1) winner Winning Colors at the line in the 1988 Breeders’ Cup Distaff (G1), which gave her 13 wins from as many starts—the most of any unbeaten horse at racing’s highest levels since *Ribot retired after 16 straight victories in Europe in 1956.
“It was something we never even considered when she started racing and, as she continued to win, it became something that we thought was maybe possible, and now we’re on the brink of [equaling Personal Ensign]; it’s very exciting,” Shirreffs said.
Shirreffs said serious deliberation has not begun on the subject of Zenyatta’s Breeders’ Cup destination. She could seek a repeat in the Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic (G1) or face males for the first time in the Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1).
Shirreffs’s wife, Dottie Ingordo-Shirreffs, is the racing manager for Zenyatta’s owners, Jerome and Ann Moss.
“It’s a discussion I haven’t had with Dottie or Mr. Moss yet,” Shirreffs said. “I think you would have to look at everything involved: maybe the size of the field, the level of competition, who is going to show up in the big Classic. I think there will be a lot of factors involved. Zenyatta is so special to us, and we want to make sure we put her in the right race.”
Shirreffs said the status of the Mosses’ Grade 1 winner Tiago would not be a factor in the race choice for Zenyatta. Tiago, the third-place finisher in last year’s Classic, is slated for the Goodwood Stakes (G1) on Saturday’s card at Santa Anita.
Tiago won the Goodwood in 2007 and finished second last year, but he has only raced twice this year. He finished last of six in the Harry F. Brubaker Stakes in a turf prep on August 26.
“We’ve had a little bit of setbacks with Tiago over the year,” Shirreffs said. “He had some stomach issues early on, so his racing hasn’t been as consistent as it was last year. I think the Goodwood is going to be a big test for Tiago.”
Shirreffs said Grade 1 winner Life Is Sweet will join Zenyatta in the Lady’s Secret rather than heading to the turf in the Yellow Ribbon Stakes (G1) on Saturday at Santa Anita.
Shirreffs said owner Marty Wygod opted for the Lady’s Secret.
“My preference would have been to run Life Is Sweet on the grass,” Shirreffs said.
Jeff Lowe is a Thoroughbred Times staff writer