NEWS
Zenyatta to make season debut
in Milady
Posted: Wednesday, May 20, 2009 5:52 PM
ZENYATTA
Benoit & Associates photo
by Mike Curry
Undefeated champion Zenyatta will make a belated 2009 debut on Saturday in the $150,000 Milady Handicap (G2) at Hollywood Park.
The five-year-old Street Cry (Ire) mare won each of her seven starts last season for trainer John Shirreffs and owners Jerry and Ann Moss, closing the year with a 1 1/2-length victory in the Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic (G1) (video) on October 24 at the Oak Tree meeting at Santa Anita Park to cement the Eclipse Award as champion older female.
Shirreffs entered Zenyatta in the Louisville Distaff Stakes (G2) on May 1 at Churchill Downs and shipped her from Southern California to Louisville for the race. Facing a probable off track, Shirreffs decided to scratch Zenyatta from the Louisville Distaff on the day of the race.
Zenyatta will return from a seven-month layoff in the 1 1/16-mile Milady. With nine wins in as many starts, including four Grade 1 victories, Zenyatta was assigned high weight of 126 pounds.
Earlier this season, Shirreffs said he hoped to map out a plan that would avoid a matchup between Zenyatta and Grade 1-winning stablemate Life Is Sweet before this year’s Breeders’ Cup World Championships. But after uncooperative weather in Louisville earlier this month forced his hand, Shirreffs’s two talented runners will meet for the first time on Saturday.
Life Is Sweet, a four-year-old Storm Cat filly owned and bred by Marty and Pam Wygod, enters the Milady off a 2 1/2-length triumph in the Santa Margarita Invitational Handicap (G1) (video) on March 14 at Santa Anita Park. She is unbeaten in three starts, all in graded stakes, this season.
Not only are Zenyatta and Life Is Sweet perhaps the top two older females based in Southern California, they also utilize similar running styles as both excel when closing from well off the pace.
Life Is Sweet will carry 122 pounds with each of the other seven contenders assigned 116 pounds or less.
Mike Curry is a Thoroughbred Times TODAY editor
