John Shirreffs

It's a baby colt for Zenyatta. The most anticipated birth of the year in horse racing occurred Thursday night around 10:10 p.m. in Lexington, Ky., when 2010 Horse of the Year Zenyatta gave birth to a 130-pound colt. It was the first foal for the 8-year-old Zenyatta. Zenyatta's owners, Ann and Jerry Moss, were present. According to Zenyatta.com , the colt is a dark bay with a white star and “polka dots on his feet,” just like Zenyatta. The father is Bernardini, who won the 2006 Preakness Stakes.

It's a baby colt for Zenyatta. The most anticipated birth of the year in horse racing occurred Thursday night around 10:10 p.m. in Lexington, Ky., when 2010 Horse of the Year Zenyatta gave birth to a 130-pound colt. It was the first foal for the 8-year-old Zenyatta. Zenyatta's owners, Ann and Jerry Moss, were present. According to Zenyatta.com , the colt is a dark bay with a white star and “polka dots on his feet,” just like Zenyatta. The father is Bernardini, who won the 2006 Preakness Stakes.

When Dottie Ingordo went to Hollywood Park in June 2000 to interview John Shirreffs as a possible trainer for her clients, Jerry and Ann Moss, it struck her that it might be difficult. She didn't know what Shirreffs looked like. It worked out OK. A few days later, Shirreffs was given the job Shirreffs, who will be 60 on June 1, remembers their first date. "She was wearing -- what is it? -- a short pair of those culottes," Shirreffs said. "I never could resist a good set of legs."

Opening day at Del Mar has become horse racing's version of the Academy Awards, producing lots of glitz, glamour and most of all, big crowds. There were 45,309 at last year's opener, and Wednesday's first day of Del Mar's 37-day summer meeting figures to offer another party-like atmosphere that includes spectators wearing lots of colorful hats during a 10-race program. A capacity field of 10 is entered, with four also-eligibles, in the featured race, the $100,000 Oceanside Stakes for 3-year-olds going one mile on the turf.

First, the name. You might not believe in the horse, but could you at least correctly pronounce the name? It's "JOCK-oh-mo." Trevor Denman, the esteemed track announcer, has already publicly botched it twice. "We kept sending them notes about it," Dottie Ingardo-Shirreffs, Giacomo's racing manager, said with a sigh. Second, the jockey. He has finally won a Derby in his 12th try, so could you get off his once-broken back? "Honestly, I'm so numb," Mike Smith said after he finished crying.

Reporting from Louisville, Ky. — The horse race that thoroughbred fans want most was not wiped out at Churchill Downs on Friday. Jess Jackson, majority owner of 2009 Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra, said that his 4-year-old mare was still coming back from a six-month layoff and her loss by a neck, in a thrilling stretch dual with Unrivaled Belle in the $418,800 La Troienne, the sixth race on Kentucky Oaks Day at Churchill Downs, was...

Like the sport itself, Friday morning at the John Shirreffs stable at Hollywood Park is a carnival ride of emotions. Barn 55 South is the home of Zenyatta, current superstar and the key adhesive holding much of horse racing together. To get there, you walk a quarter mile along Zenyatta Way. Fitting. The marvelous mare won her 19th race without a defeat last Saturday, and 25,837 people showed up to worship and yell their lungs out. Most days at Hollywood Park, even during a meeting carrying the prestige banner of the Oak Tree Racing Assn.

A racing legend takes to the track for the next-to-last time in her extraordinary career on Saturday afternoon, and that alone should bring a tear or two at Hollywood Park. Her name is Zenyatta and, win or lose, the 6-year-old mare has always been a horse to stir the emotions. Except, there have not been any losses for Zenyatta. Not one. She has been loaded into the starting gate 18 times and has reached the wire first 18 times, earning more than $6 million for owners Jerry and Ann Moss.

Not to be lost in the scrum of a Saturday sports scene that will feature two baseball playoff games and the usual crowded schedule of college football is a huge racing day at Santa Anita. For this day, at least, the Great Race Place should live up to its name. Four of the races at the Oak Tree meeting will dole out a total of $1.1 million in purses and each of the four will qualify its winner for next month's Breeders' Cup, also at Santa Anita. And two of the current bigger names in the sport are scheduled to compete.

Despite all the oohs and aahs and superlatives that correctly followed yet another amazing race Sunday by the remarkable Zenyatta, jockey Mike Smith managed to capture best what had happened. Half an hour after the now 12-0 mare of trainer John Shirreffs and owners Jerry and Ann Moss had done a bullet-train charge down the stretch to win the $300,000 Clement L. Hirsch Stakes at Del Mar by a nose, Smith sat in front of reporters. He was told that Zenyatta had run her last quarter mile in 22.49 seconds and her last sixteenth in 5.2 seconds, reaching her top speed of the race of 40 miles per hour the moment she hit the wire.

There are 167 of the finest thoroughbred horses in the world who will compete as afterthoughts here the next two days. They are warmup acts to No. 168, a mare named Zenyatta. It is amazing to behold. Not only do other owners and trainers of horses entered in this year's Breeders' Cup, where $26 million in purses will be won, not resent her dominance of the scene. They welcome it. Renowned California trainer John Sadler, who has four entrants in this annual prestigious showcase of horse racing's finest, estimates he has seen the magical Zenyatta run in 15 of her 19 races -- all 19 victories, of course.

The adjectives and adverbs are used up. It is time for Zenyatta to run. She has danced her way into our hearts. Now she can race her way into immortality. It will be cold and dark by 6:45 p.m. Saturday, Eastern time, when they load the legendary lady into the starting gate at the legendary racetrack with the twin spires. This is not the first Saturday in May, not the Kentucky Derby, which is Churchill Downs' brand. It will be November, under the lights, with a lot fewer mint juleps and females in fancy hats.

Like the sport itself, Friday morning at the John Shirreffs stable at Hollywood Park is a carnival ride of emotions. Barn 55 South is the home of Zenyatta, current superstar and the key adhesive holding much of horse racing together. To get there, you walk a quarter mile along Zenyatta Way. Fitting. The marvelous mare won her 19th race without a defeat last Saturday, and 25,837 people showed up to worship and yell their lungs out. Most days at Hollywood Park, even during a meeting carrying the prestige banner of the Oak Tree Racing Assn.

Racing fans swarmed around the paddock at Hollywood Park on Saturday showing off Zenyatta posters, paintings, buttons, hats and T-shirts in support of the unbeaten 6-year-old mare who was chasing perfection in her final racing appearance in Southern California. And like the entertainer she has become, Zenyatta created suspense and intrigue. At the eighth pole, Zenyatta was in third place, three lengths behind the leader Switch, a 3-year-old filly who looked on the verge of conquering the queen of thoroughbred racing.

A racing legend takes to the track for the next-to-last time in her extraordinary career on Saturday afternoon, and that alone should bring a tear or two at Hollywood Park. Her name is Zenyatta and, win or lose, the 6-year-old mare has always been a horse to stir the emotions. Except, there have not been any losses for Zenyatta. Not one. She has been loaded into the starting gate 18 times and has reached the wire first 18 times, earning more than $6 million for owners Jerry and Ann Moss.

Los Angeles Times Once again, racing giveth and it taketh away. It is alternately the sport of kings and the playground of the pigheaded. Sunday should be a day of unobstructed joy and pride at Hollywood Park, even if Zenyatta doesn't do what everybody assumes she will. The unbeaten 6-year-old mare will be attempting to establish a modern-day record for top-echelon thoroughbreds with her 17th straight victory. That would surpass some pretty fast company, namely Cigar and Citation.

The adjectives and adverbs are used up. It is time for Zenyatta to run. She has danced her way into our hearts. Now she can race her way into immortality. It will be cold and dark by 6:45 p.m. Saturday, Eastern time, when they load the legendary lady into the starting gate at the legendary racetrack with the twin spires. This is not the first Saturday in May, not the Kentucky Derby, which is Churchill Downs' brand. It will be November, under the lights, with a lot fewer mint juleps and females in fancy hats.

One word sums up perfectly this weekend's Turf Festival of horse racing at Hollywood Park. Bittersweet. The sweet part is easy. Zenyatta will be in public again. The retired 5-year-old, a lady who became the ultimate champ with her stirring victory in the recent Breeders' Cup Classic, will parade after the seventh race Sunday. Exercise rider Steve Willard will bring her up the main straightaway and guide her back across the finish line one more time. As in all of her 14 races in a career that marked her as one of the best ever, no other horse will be in front of her. She will make one more familiar stop in the winner's circle, and regular jockey Mike Smith will climb aboard.

Reporting from Louisville, Ky. — The horse race that thoroughbred fans want most was not wiped out at Churchill Downs on Friday. Jess Jackson, majority owner of 2009 Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra, said that his 4-year-old mare was still coming back from a six-month layoff and her loss by a neck, in a thrilling stretch dual with Unrivaled Belle in the $418,800 La Troienne, the sixth race on Kentucky Oaks Day at Churchill Downs, was...

The sun glistened off infield tents and the wind jostled jockeys' silks at Our Old Kentucky Home on Thursday. It was the day before the day before the day that pumps blood into horse racing's veins. Twenty horses are set to break from the starting gate late Saturday afternoon in the 136th Kentucky Derby. That's about six too many to allow for room for all to compete to the best of their ability. But that cow is long out of the barn and the general fan, who pays attention once a year to this sport, gets more of a cavalry charge than a horse race.