Zenyatta may be forgetful, but she's also unforgettable

Zenyatta spent three championship campaigns in trainer John Shirreffs’s barn in California. But whatever memories of her former life as a racehorse remain for Zenyatta, now a broodmare at Lane’s End Farm in Kentucky, she evidently doesn’t remember the trainer who guided her to titles as champion older female in 2008, 2009, and 2010, and Horse of the Year in 2010.

Shirreffs said he last saw Zenyatta while attending the Keeneland September sale, and that she didn’t seem to remember him.

“She’s forgotten about me,” he said. “Out of sight, out of mind, as they say.”

But oh, how could Shirreffs – or anyone else associated with or witness to Zenyatta – ever forget her, no matter how much time has passed? It has been a decade since her signature victory in the 2009 Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita, a race announcer Trevor Denman declared “one we’ll never forget.”

Zenyatta is still the only female ever to win the Classic, despite the likes of Horse of the Year honorees Azeri and Havre de Grace taking a tilt at the prize. The race was one of her 13 Grade 1 triumphs, which also included the 2008 Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic.

Zenyatta’s exploits earned her a race named in her honor at Santa Anita, won this year by Paradise Woods – a multiple Grade 1 winner trained by Shirreffs.

“It’s very thrilling to win it on Zenyatta’s 10th anniversary,” said Dottie Ingordo Shirreffs, the trainer’s wife. “We’re very thrilled.”

While Zenyatta was near-perfect on the racetrack, with the only blemish her head loss to Blame in the 2010 Classic, her luck as a broodmare has been anything but. Zenyatta, who is owned by Jerry and Ann Moss, has yet to produce a winner, and has been plagued by bad luck. The mare’s first two sons, Cozmic One and Ziconic, went winless in a combined 17 starts, and are both now in training as sporthorses. Cozmic One competed in last year’s Retired Racehorse Project Thoroughbred Makeover, while Ziconic just began his training this year. Zenyatta’s 2014 filly died as a weanling in a paddock accident; her 2016 colt died days after his birth due to complications from aspirating meconium; and the mare aborted what would have been her 2018 foal to the cover of Into Mischief.

The most recent living foal out of Zenyatta, who was not bred for the 2015 or 2019 seasons, is Zellda, a 2-year-old Medaglia d’Oro filly. Zellda received her early training from Jeanne Mayberry in Florida before arriving at Shirreffs’s barn in California in September. Meanwhile, the filly’s famous dam continues to reside at Lane’s End, where she is in foal to Candy Ride for the 2020 foaling season.