Zensational represented by first winner at Hollywood Park

Grade 1 winner Zensational had his first winner on the track with the first-time starter Sensational Nikki at Hollywood Park on Sunday.

Sensational Nikki ran five furlongs in 1:00.19, winning by three-quarters of a length over Wired for Fun in a six-runner race for 2-year-old maiden fillies. Trained by Peter Miller for Rockingham Ranch, Sensational Nikki was purchased for $75,000 at the Barretts March sale of selected 2-year-olds in-training earlier this year.

Sensational Nikki was bred by Gaines-Gentry Thoroughbreds, and is out of Liberada, by Spend a Buck. Liberada, 23, won four stakes and $258,825 in her racing career. She has produced eight winners from 10 foals to race, including Grade 3-placed Silver Squire. Liberada is a half-sister to stakes winners Unique Type, Magnetic Type, and Gray Lady Type; the latter is the dam of multiple Grade 2 winner Capeside Lady.

Zensational, a 7-year-old son of Unbridled’s Song out of the stakes-winning Phone Trick mare Joke, stands for $15,000 at Hill 'n' Dale Farms in Lexington, Ky. He has 81 foals in his first crop.

Bred in Kentucky by Claiborne Farm, Zensational won 5 of 8 starts and $669,300 racing for Zayat Stables and trainer Bob Baffert. Zensational won three consecutive Grade 1 races against older horses as a 3-year-old in 2009: the Triple Bend Stakes at Hollywood Park and the Bing Crosby Stakes and the Pat O’Brien Handicap at Del Mar.