Click above to watch Zenyatta in the Breeders’ Cup Classic 2009
(Footage : ESPN)

ZENYATTA
BREEDERS’ CUP CLASSIC 2009

The news came as no surprise Monday that the undefeated Zenyatta (Street Cry - Vertigineux, by Kris S.) had run her last race. Trainer John Shirreffs told Daily Racing Form Sunday that the five-year-old mare would remain at Hollywood Park for several weeks to be let down, and then head to Kentucky to be bred. “Where else do you go?” lamented Shirreffs.

“Fourteen-for-14 and top it off with a win in the Breeders’ Cup Classic? On the biggest stage in the world, she performs. Isn’t it amazing that a horse with her running style is 14-for-14? She’s always stepped up.”

Owners Jerry and Ann Moss, along with Shirreffs and his wife, Dottie, as well as jockey Mike Smith celebrated their Classic victory at the Arroyo Chop House in Pasadena Saturday night.

Following her impressive maiden score at Hollywood on Thanksgiving Day 2007, Zenyatta took an allowance test before earning her first graded score in the 2008 G2 El Encino Stakes. The formidable filly picked up her first Grade 2 score in her only conventional dirt effort, the Apple Blossom at Oaklawn that April, and added four more elite victories that season. Crowned champion older mare after taking the GI Breeders’ Cup Ladies Classic, Zenyatta, took a deserved break, and returned for a perfect five-for-five campaign in 2009, capped by her historic performance in the G1 Breeders’ Cup Classic Saturday.

She retires with earnings of $5,474,580.

As Shirreffs observed, the mare will be sorely missed. “It’s a big hole for racing, not just my barn,” said Shirreffs. “You saw the crowd.” Mating plans have not yet been decided.

 ZENYATTA’S RACE RECORD

 Extract from Thoroughbred Daily News