Adare Manor gains fourth-consecutive graded stakes win with Zenyatta

ARCADIA, Calif. – Streaking 4-year-old filly Adare Manor will represent the home team next month in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, and probably next year in the same race, after a runaway victory in the Grade 2 Zenyatta Stakes on Sunday at Santa Anita.

Facing three rivals in a Zenyatta field otherwise void of speed, Adare Manor wired the field by 5 1/4 lengths under jockey Juan Hernandez to further solidify her role as top older filly or mare in California.

It’s a position she can maintain next season at age 5. “We’re thinking about maybe running her an extra year,” Baffert said in the winner’s circle after he won the Zenyatta for a sixth time. His previous winners all started at higher odds than Adare Manor, who paid $2.20.

She ran to pari-mutuel expectations, winning the 1 1/16-mile race in 1:43.70 over runner-up Desert Dawn. Micro Share and Window Shopping finished third and fourth in a race that was never really in doubt after Adare Manor made the lead.

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“She had to run like this to run in the Breeders’ Cup,” trainer Bob Baffert said. “I think she deserves it.”

Does she ever. The win was Adare Manor’s fourth straight graded stakes. A 4-year-old by Uncle Mo, Adare Manor will enter the BC Distaff with at least one advantage – Santa Anita is her home track. Baffert and owner Michael Lund Peterson will take nothing for granted.

“You have to be pretty good. Breeders’ Cup is tough,” Baffert said. “Everybody’s tough. You gotta be A-game, good trip, everything.”

Everybody was not tough in the Zenyatta. Adare Manor was the lone front-runner in a small field and, after a half-mile in a leisurely 47.91 and three-quarters in 1:11.96, she was gone. The race was effectively over at the start. Her jockey said her start was clean compared to recent races.

“She broke a little slow the last couple of times, but today she broke on her own,” Hernandez said. “I didn’t even have to push her. She was just galloping around on the lead and I didn’t do much today.”

Desert Dawn, a late-runner repeatedly compromised by slow fractions, faced the same nagging dilemma. She saved ground within striking range of the winner, but was no match late. Desert Dawn finished more than six lengths clear of Micro Share.

Adare Manor has won seven races and $981,600 from 13 starts. In nine starts at Santa Anita, she has six wins and three seconds. As for Del Mar, where the 2024 Breeders’ Cup will be held, that is where Adare Manor scored her first Grade 1 victory this summer in the Clement L. Hirsch.

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