The biggest deal for one of horse racing's bigger deals, the Breeders' Cup, will slip quietly and officially into the limelight this morning.
Barring a late change of heart by her managers, Zenyatta will be formally entered in the Breeders' Cup Classic, in which she will race against the boys and become the pulse of her sport on one of its most important weekends.
This was a decision that, made weeks ago, could have been milked for the masses and trumpeted from towers. Horse racing is putting $25.5 million on the line in 14 huge races, all but one of them worth at least $1 million and the biggest one, the grand finale Classic, worth $5 million. Only the Dubai World Cup writes a bigger check, that for $6 million.
So Zenyatta's story line, the most compelling of all, was the billboard the event needed. Would the unbeaten 5-year-old mare have her quest for 14-0, in possibly her last race, be in a defense of her victory in last year's Breeders' Cup Ladies Classic, the highlight of Friday's first six races at Santa Anita? Or would she step up and race the best of the world's male horses, where no female has won before, in the event's last race Saturday? If this were the NBA, David Stern would have 25 people in business suits, locked behind closed doors, demanding a decision so they could create TV ads and catchy slogans. But horse racing is a different animal.
So too are the humans who own and operate this heroic mare.
John Sherriffs, Zenyatta's trainer, was asked if anybody from the Breeders' Cup pressed him or owners Jerry and Ann Moss for a decision on which race they would run.
"Nope," he said.
Would it have made a difference?
"Nope," he said.
Sherriffs is a veteran trainer, highly successful, with more than 50 horses in his barns at Hollywood Park and Santa Anita and a Kentucky Derby victory in 2005 to his name with the 50-1 longshot Giacomo. So when the scenario was presented of the final Zenyatta decision being made in a huge boardroom, with the Mosses sitting on one side of the fancy table and Sherriffs and his wife, Dottie, who manages his stables, on the other -- hordes of reporters and TV cameras waiting outside -- Sherriffs laughed.
"We'll see how she is these last few days," he said Saturday, "and then we'll talk to the Mosses on the phone for a couple of minutes and that'll be it."
