Zenyatta won the 2008 Lady's Secret by 3 1/2 lengths.
Undefeated Zenyatta attempts to equal Personal Ensign by winning her 13th consecutive race when she goes to the post in Oak Tree's $300,000 Lady's Secret Stakes (gr. I) as the heavy favorite Oct. 10 at Santa Anita.
"That's something we never imagined when she started racing," trainer John Shirreffs said of Zenyatta possibly matching the legendary filly. "And then as she has continued to win, it became something that was maybe possible. And now we're on the brink of it. So it's very exciting."
The crowd favorite will meet many of the same rivals in the 1 1/16-mile Pro-Ride event that she has defeated in her three earlier victories this year, with one significant addition among the eight entrants. That is Godolphin's Cocoa Beach, who ran second to Zenyatta in last year's Breeders' Cup Ladies' Classic (gr. I) and is shipping west to get accustomed for a second try at the World Championships.
The Lady's Secret is the last of four of Breeders' Cup Challenge races on the Santa Anita program, with the earner automatically qualifying for the $2 million Ladies' Classic Nov. 6 over the same track. Zenyatta, though, might end up taking on males a day later in the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic (gr. I) regardless of whether she wins the Lady's Secret.
And it will be no cakewalk. Zenyatta very nearly lost her perfect record in her last start, the Clement L. Hirsch (gr. I) at Del Mar Aug. 9, making her customary late charge barely in time to register a head victory over Anabaa's Creation, an unheralded mare from the Julio Canani barn that returns in the Lady's Secret.
Also in the field from that race is Lethal Heat, who set soft fractions in the Hirsch and nearly got away with stealing it before finishing a close third, and Zenyatta's stablemate Life Is Sweet, who gets back on her favorite surface after running fourth in the 1 1/16-mile Hirsch.
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