The stall doors at trainer John Shirreffs's barn at Hollywood Park have small white stickers that note in blue letters the horse's name, sire, dam and owner.
In the fall of 2007, the team made a sticker that read on four lines: Zenyatta, Street Cry, Vertigineux, Jerry and Ann Moss. At the time, Zenyatta, by Street Cry out of Vertigineux and owned by Jerry and Ann Moss was just an unraced 3-year-old filly.
During that autumn, a visitor was walking down the shedrow with Shirreffs when the conversation turned to the trainer's expectations for the winter. One prospect, he said, was an unraced 3-year-old filly, by Street Cry out of Vertigineux. "I've got Balance's little sister," he said.
At that time, that meant quite a bit. Balance had won 6 of 16 starts, $1,048,491, and five stakes, including three Grade 1 races. If the unraced filly accomplished half that, it would be a success.
Zenyatta made her debut at Hollywood Park on Nov. 22, 2007, and won a maiden race over 6 1-2 furlongs by three lengths. She won her first start around two turns in an allowance race by 3 1-2 lengths on Dec. 15, 2007. The buzz had started.
By the end of the summer of 2008, she had won five stakes. By the end of that year, she was a champion, a season capped by a win in the BC Ladies' Classic at Santa Anita.
This year, she made five starts, two at Hollywood Park, one at Del Mar and two at Santa Anita. She was all out to win before a large crowd in the Clement Hirsch Stakes at Del Mar in August, and thrilled a crowd of 58,000 and a national cable audience with a last-to-first move in Saturday's Breeders' Cup Classic, her first start against the boys.
The response she got from that huge crowd was one of the finest moments in recent racing history.
Her career will end soon. She may not start again. Shirreffs knows that. Standing on a backstretch patio overlooking the Hollywood Park racetrack on Oct. 23, he watched her gallop powerfully, part of her morning routine. The man standing next to Shirreffs said, "I'll miss her when she's gone."
Shirreffs had a quick response. "So will I."
