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BREEDERS' CUP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPSOctober 24, 2008Mike SmithARCADIA, CALIFORNIA ERIC WING: Okay. We're back for our final interview of the day. We're with Mike Smith, who earlier won aboard Stardom Bound, and just about an hour or so ago won the feature event on today's card, the $2 million Ladies' Classic with Zenyatta, now a perfect 9 for 9. We found out just a few moments ago why you stuck around to ride the 9th race. At any rate, Mike, congratulations on yet another scintillating performance by Zenyatta. She did it the way she always does it. Just take us through the trip. MIKE SMITH: You know, she started acting up a little bit in the gate today, so I got a little concerned. The cameras were clicking off and they were agitating her. So the starter got them to stop. Once they stopped, she slowed right down. She got away like she always does, slow. But one of the best she's ever done, only for the fact she got away in good order. She broke in the right lead. Sometimes she's so big, it takes a little bit to get her going. Whereas today, she was relaxed. Around the first turn, I knew she was there for me. I was pretty excited from that moment on, to tell you the truth. I knew she was going to run big today. Q. As much confidence as you have to have in her, when you look over and sneak a peak at the toteboard and see 2-5 in a race with as good a group of opponents as this one, do you feel a little extra pressure in that situation? MIKE SMITH: Oh, yeah. It goes with getting the opportunity to ride a great mare like Zenyatta. Sure, there is extra pressure. But I don't know. I use it in a good way. I'm just so proud to be aboard her. I know that if I give her her way, and I do my job, I know she's going to do hers. All I concentrate on is me doing my job, she does the rest. I stayed on. I gave her a chance. I was really worried about Music Note, is that her name, the other Godolphin horse. That is the horse that I thought I needed to be on, to be close to. He was looking for me the whole race, and he should be. But I just stayed right behind him. I said I'm not going to play my hand until he plays his. There's got to be a point he lets his mare run, and he's got to try to win. When he does that, I knew she'd be all over him, just because I know her so well. She does it in the morning, every time she runs. There's no reason she wasn't going to do it today, and she did it. Q. Same question I posed to Jerry Moss, and he politely declined to answer because of the fact that it's not in his hands, not for him to decide, et cetera. But if Curlin were to lose tomorrow, what is your take on the 2008 Horse of the Year campaign? MIKE SMITH: Starts with a Z. I really believe she deserves it. If he gets beat tomorrow, she deserves Horse of the Year, and I'm being honest. I wouldn't be any more worried if I was running tomorrow than I did today. I really felt -- these mares today, I felt this Ladies' Classic was probably one of the toughest distaffs I've ever seen. In any ride, these mares could have run against a colt - at least four of them could have. They could all run tomorrow. They showed a good showing. And yet she runs by them. I found a new word for her, it's "Bottomless." I seem to never get close to the bottom. Every time I ask her, there is something there. Today, I thought to myself, I'm going to really let her run today. And I went to let her do it, and I said why. There was no use. I hand rode her on in. She was just pricking her ears, she was just letting me have fun. She didn't care that I was on her. Q. Stardom Bound and Zenyatta have two similar running styles. As the rider of both, in your head, do you pretend like you're on the same horse both times, or are there differences between the two that we who aren't aboard don't see? MIKE SMITH: I'll be honest with you, starting the riding with Stardom Bound before Zenyatta gave me more confidence, to help me make my path and say -- I just trusted her, too. And I just took a long light hold. I kind of looked and knew what was going on in front of me, and I knew what was going to happen. Every time I even moved my hand to get more comfortable, she was there. So I knew she was going to fire. I was comfortable that a filly could be that far back and still make that kind of ground on the track. Sometimes you worry, it's been a little quick. I actually moved a little early on her because Desormeaux was getting through. And if I wait for him to get through, I've got to push him out, go wider and he gets the jump on me. So I thought I would sacrifice moving a little early and get the jump on him and not have to go as wide. In her previous races, she told me that she hadn't gotten tired yet, so I knew she could handle it. Though today, she got tired, but I put her into a pretty long drive. Q. You had a chance to ride Azeri. I'm just wondering how those two fillies compare to one another. Also, you really came wide off that second turn. Was there any concern of going that wide with her? MIKE SMITH: To answer the first part, you know, people always try to compare Azeri, Inside Information, all the great mares that I've ridden, to Zenyatta. I don't think it's fair, because in their time they were unbeatable. I don't like to compare them. Zenyatta has the size over all those other fillies, and she does things -- she seems to do things easier than they did them. But during their time, there was no one to beat those fillies. So I don't really care to compare them. As far as going wide, I really only came wide to make my run. I wasn't really wide around the turn. I was the last horse making the run, so I'm not concerned about going wide. Who is going to run by me and get through? I've already passed everybody. So it doesn't make much sense to take a shot when I have the clear path. She's so big, it's actually better for her. She will run inside if you need her to be, but there's no one else to pass. I had the horse that I felt I needed to follow right in front of me. He led the way. We were two wide going into the turn, and coming out of the turn, we were five and six wide, but we cut the corner all the way until it was time to come out. On synthetics, it's almost better. You gain more by momentum on synthetics than you do gaining ground. It's almost sort of like Belmont. Q. What would you like to see Zenyatta do next? Do you want her to take on boys? MIKE SMITH: I just hope she gets to attempt next year. I hope they keep her around. That may be selfish on my part, but it's such a joy to be around her. It's amazing to say, but she's just now figuring it out. She real is. Before she'd get nervous and hot. She wasn't sure about everything. Nowadays, she's showing off every time people were cheering. Three months ago, four months ago, she would have jumped through her skin. Today, when everybody was cheering, she started dancing, man. She did her little dance. She's just figuring the whole thing out. She really is. Q. How did you feel when everybody was cheering her? How did that make you feel? MIKE SMITH: I was part of it. You know, I was part of cheering her. I swear I was cheering her, man. I was just in awe of her. Every time I watch her run, most of the time you go back and you want to see how good you look. It's like no one's on her. She's so incredible. She deserves all eyes on her, not no one else, you know. Q. I'd like to ask you about Tiago tomorrow, but lots of questions about the track, and how it is going to play to the pro ride. You were able to come up wide. You came up the rail on big crux. Track playing fair today? MIKE SMITH: I thought it played extremely fair today. I saw nothing wrong with it. If you did the right thing on the lead, you could get away with it. You could be inside, you could be out. They've done a good job keeping the racetrack fair. Q. What about Tiago tomorrow? Can you sum up his chances? MIKE SMITH: There's always been this race that I thought he had inside him that we haven't seen yet. He just gives you that indication there is one big race in there, and I know there is. Sometimes he don't like the track, so he doesn't want to run as well. Sometimes he wants to lug you. So he still only gets beat here and there to top Grade 1 horses in the world. You ever put it together, and you think there's just one monster race in there. If he's ever going to do it, it will be tomorrow. He's trained too good. He's never trained this good, he's never looked this good. I was talking to John, I said, "Should I put him in the race more? He needs to be in the race a little bit more. When he's in the race, that's when he runs his best." He said, "No, don't do it. If he doesn't put you there, he ain't going to run his race. Every time you were there, he puts you there. If you go to make him do that, he's going to be on the bridle." That gave me a lot of confidence when he said that. I felt like, Okay, I don't have to put him there. He's going to take me there. I'm going to let him take me there. Q. Zenyatta has the kind of star potential that may enable her to draw fans from more mainstream sports, I suppose like baseball or football. For people that haven't been around horses, how do you describe the connection and the partnership that you enjoy with her? MIKE SMITH: You know, it's strange, I don't know how to say this. I know we have a connection. I know there's a partnership. I'm just in awe of her. I think all the connection and partnerships with her groom and her gallop boy. Man, they love that mare, and she loves them. I've never seen anything like it. I come around and she's like, Get away. Her groom comes around, and she loves all over him. She licks him like a dog, it's amazing. That's a connection. I do my job, I stay out of her way, I tell her how special she is, and I never stop touching on her. Q. Tiago is your only Breeders' Cup mount tomorrow in the nine Breeders' Cup races. But race riding is similar to other sports in some respects. Confidence level has to be important going into the race, especially when you're not the favorite. Maybe you need to give an even better performance than usual to get your horse home. What does a day like today do for you heading into such an important day in race as tomorrow's classic? MIKE SMITH: Well, I'm not going to lose any sleep (laughing). I'm very humbled right now. I'm very content to just kind of lay down and go to sleep, to tell you the truth, and worry about tomorrow. I have a lot of confidence, though. It does help. Just to help me ride the race I rode in the last race was, you know -- some of it was because of what happened a day earlier. It carries over. And that's any athlete in any sport. You start catching the ball, you want to catch it with one finger all of a sudden, stuff like that just happens. You see things and you slow them down. Right now, I'm going into the race 110%, and I know he is. He's training that way. He's just got to do his part. Q. What was Zenyatta's best race of her career? MIKE SMITH: Well, besides today, the Apple Blossom. That's when I learned to have confidence in her. I'd never ridden her. David Flores rode her in her first races. He did a tremendous job. He taught her this. He let her gallop back there last and move for an eighth of a mile. When I rode in the Apple Blossom, I went down the back side, and Ginger Punch and, I forget the name of the other mare in front of me, and I thought, Man, you left her way too much to do. Do something. And I went and nudged on her like twice. Then I went to thinking, Oh, man, now you're going to hit the front too soon. What did you do that for? That was the explosive move she had. Ever since then I knew to be very, very careful. Q. Do you feel that Zenyatta's resume is even more impressive when you talk about possible horse-of-the-year bid, because of that race on dirt, that she can't be branded just a synthetic specialist? MIKE SMITH: Without a doubt. That was a tremendous race, if you saw that. I was 12 behind going into the turn. I was head-to-head coming out. She made up 12 links on horses like Ginger Punch, and then kicked on by and won by five or six lengths. It's an amazing race. I know people earlier said she's beating up on the same horses. She beat up on the best there is from everywhere today, so. ERIC WING: Great day, Mike. Career day. Congratulations. MIKE SMITH: Thank you, appreciate it. End of FastScripts |
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