One-Horse Show in the Zenyatta

With 10 wins and a second from 11 starts over the local strip and with a 114 Beyer Speed Figure from her last-out success in the GI TVG Pacific Classic that equals Liam’s Map (Unbridled’s Song)’s Woodward for highest of the year, Spendthrift Farm’s Beholder (Henny Hughes) warms up for a likely appearance in the GI Breeders’ Cup Classic in Saturday’s GI Zenyatta S. on opening day at Santa Anita.

Victorious in this event as a 3-year-old in 2013 en route to a defeat of her elders in the GI Breeders’ Cup Distaff, she went two-for-three last season, including a second straight win in this event, but was forced to miss a Distaff defense via illness. A potential sale at public auction was scrapped, and Wayne Hughes sportingly kept her in training this year at five. She has never looked a loser in any of her four appearances this term, and her Pacific Classic was one of the more visually impressive efforts by a horse of either sex in many years. You can count even Hall of Fame trainer Richard Mandella among those bowled over by the performance.

“I was surprised with the ease in which she won the Pacific Classic, although I wouldn’t have run her if I didn’t think she had a good shot to win,” he commented. “I wouldn’t have exposed her to it if she had made me think otherwise. But the way she won, nobody could expect that. It was too good to be true.”

In the unlikely event of an upset, Warren’s Veneda (Affirmative) seems the pick of the rest. Though she was no closer than 11 1/4 lengths behind Beholder when they clashed in the GI Clement L. Hirsch S. Aug. 1, her races at Santa Anita at least put her in the mix. The Warren homebred defeated subsequent GISW Dame Dorothy (Bernardini) by 7 1/4 lengths in the GI Santa Margarita S. Mar. 14, and even when going down to defeat to Beholder in the GIII Adoration S. June 13, posted a 96 Beyer that would otherwise look pretty good in this spot.

My Sweet Addiction (Tiznow) got loose on a soft pace in this track’s GI Vanity S. May 9 and stayed on for a one-length success, defeating Warren’s Veneda into third. But she’ll need to better a low-odds ninth in the GII Fleur de Lis H. June 13 and a distant fourth in the Hirsch to even hit the board here.