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BREEDERS' CUP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPSNovember 7, 2009Jerome MossAnn MossJohn ShirreffsMike SmithARCADIA, CALIFORNIA ERIC WING: Live in the interview room in the aftermath of the Breeders' Cup Classic, with us first to talk about the ride aboard Zenyatta. Hall of Fame rider Mike Smith. Without any further adieu, just take us through the trip aboard her. MIKE SMITH: Well, it started out with a little concern after the mishap at the gate. We had to unload and everyone had to get off. And she started getting a little agitated. We got her back in the gate, and she was standing so still I didn't want to move her. But I was a little worried when the gates opened she wouldn't move period, and she didn't. So that was a huge, man, I thought oh, God, no, not today. She actually spotted a length or two leaving there. I had to get her out of there. I had to hit her out of there. I didn't know if she was going to stand or back out again. When she did come out she was in her left lead, which isn't what you want to be in. You want to be in your rights on the straights and lefts on the turns. I let her go. Let her get back to the lead and she gathered herself up. From that point on I didn't pay no attention to her. I just kept looking way in front of me trying to feel how fast they were going. I kind of missed it. After you miss the break, it's kind of hard to tell. And I just wanted to see how far away they were getting from me. And I see felt if someone was going to steal away, I was going to have to move early. At the half-mile pole I thought oh, God, they're stacked up. There's no way I'm going to get around all these horses. I'm looking for a way to split them. About that time a horse eased out and pushed everyone out. And it was just like the parting of the sea, man. It just opened up down in there. I actually might have cut another corner, but I thought God blessed me with just that, and I thought get in the clear and go from there. Then she kicked on. And the crowd started screaming. She thought maybe I should stop and pose again. She started pricking her ears and looking at the crowd, and I got after her a little bit, and she went on. And she still went, believe it or not, well within herself. She was pricking her ears and galloped out. She didn't even take a breath after the race was over. It's just incredible. I don't know. She's sent from God. It's His filly. I think he wanted a horse and made her and brought her down here to race against everyone. ERIC WING: We're going to be joined by the winning trainer John Shirreffs. John, of course, captured both the Ladies' Classic yesterday with Life is Sweet. MIKE SMITH: Never been done before. ERIC WING: Life got sweet in a big way about a half hour or so ago with Zenyatta. John, congratulations. I know you were watching the race down by the rail. You probably dreamed what it might feel like if she won the Classic, but now that you know how it feels, share that experience with us? JOHN SHIRREFFS: You know, you're watching a race progress, as you're watching the race progress, you're just waiting to see certain things happen. So when she got outside and changed her leads and started making that big move where she dropped her head, I just got so excited. Then as she crossed the finish line in front, it was just an unbelievably emotional experience to have her do this. ERIC WING: I know the Moss's tend not to like to stir the pot on these things. But you deserve your voice or votes as well. What do you think about Horse of the Year? Mike, you can go first. MIKE SMITH: I think it would be a crying shame if she didn't win Horse of the Year, that's my opinion. JOHN SHIRREFFS: Well, as we said earlier, this is a Championship Series of races. And you've seen her perform now. So I just hope that the press appreciates what they have seen. MIKE SMITH: I'd like to say she wasn't all out. She was still well within herself. So to me, that's just incredible. Q. What is the significance of this victory? You always talk about the gender matter, the female horse beating male horses. What is the significance and what does this mean? Is it that great female horses can compete on even terms with great male horses? MIKE SMITH: It certainly takes an incredible, incredible mare to do it. And you know, her size and just her style of running, and the length of her stride is just incredible. I think you have to have something special to beat them on the dirt, anyway. Q. You've always maintained that you never had to call 100%. You still always had some left in the tank. How much did you have to call on her today? MIKE SMITH: I believe that there was still another horse in front of her another length or so, she would have caught him, too. She he just does what she has to do. Everyone talks about the margin of victory because some horses like to just give it their all and go all out. She always just does what she has to do. If they run fast a, she'll just run faster. That's what she's always done. She's never tried to just blow the field away. She just likes to get by them and that's good enough for her. ERIC WING: Jerry and Ann Moss, congratulations. I'm going to throw caution to the wind and call this the greatest moment in Breeders' Cup history. But you've enjoyed the highest heights in both the business world and your work in the music industry. In the horse racing world, for that matter, winning the Kentucky Derby, how does today compare to all of that that's come before? JEROME MOSS: Quite favorably. We're over the moon, you know. What can I say? Had all kinds of opinions on whether we did the right thing or not, or whatever it was. I mean, we knew we wanted to do this for her to prove what we thought that she deserved this chance. She just performed so beautifully. So the fact that she's back home and safe, and she's got an unbeaten record to go into the history books. We couldn't be happier. We're proud of her. We think John did an unbelievable job with her, and Mike rode her like a champ. We can't thank these two guys enough for making this experience for us. Every race she ran has been an experience. Every time. Going to see her at the barn, she's such a great character, you know. Just to have her this long and since she was a yearling and have these guys work on her the way they have. Annie and I to share this together has just been the greatest time. ERIC WING: Somebody else is going to ask if I don't. So what do you think about the Horse of the Year question? JEROME MOSS: Well, that's up to you guys, really. It's not really up to us. We just brought the horse here. We beat whoever showed up, frankly. She ran her race and she won. I'm not taking anything away from that other filly. As I've always said, she's ran a tremendous campaign, and they deserve a lot of credit. I think it's a tough one. So you guys are going to have to figure it out (laughing). Q. Turning for home, it appeared as if you wanted to get through a gap between Twice Over and Summer Bird. Did you close and decide to switch lanes and made another move? Was your rhythm and movement checked at that point? MIKE SMITH: I actually was going to split them. She stays a little more focused when she splits horses she gets aggressive. So I was going to try, but they started closing back together. And I left myself enough to where I thought if they did close that at that point I could get to the outside. It worked out great. Q. Besides her incredible athletic ability, her amazing intelligence, what does that lend to your ability to train her, your ability to ride her, and your ability to campaign her? She seems, more than any other thoroughbred on the track, just incredibly intelligent. She pulled today coming out of the saddling enclosure twice. She did it the other day in the walking ring. She's truly amazing. What would you say about her intelligence as it helps her win races? JOHN SHIRREFFS: You know, she's really grown and really shown and developed a personality that she really shows off to her fans. She's just grown and handled everything. Del Mar was a big, big turning point for her with the crowd because now she sort of plays the crowd. She loves the crowd. When people yell at her she just does her little prance. I don't know. She's got a relationship with her fans. Q. How did you deal with it when you all had to back out of the gate after the Quality Road problem? MIKE SMITH: Very quietly. Stepped off very gently and just prayed that she didn't get too excited. Then in loading her back again, it was just a little bit of trouble getting her back in there again. Because everyone was making it, and there was a lot going on back there. Like I said before, I was a little concerned that now she's going to think maybe she's going to stand. Sure enough, when they opened she didn't come out of there. This is probably the slowest that she's ever broke, to tell you the truth. For her to still do what she did today after breaking slow like that is just incredible. Q. You've been in show business all your life. How does the crowd reacting to her compare to the reactions of the great stars that have been around? And establishing new fans that wouldn't have cared for horse racing except for her? JEROME MOSS: Well, she's a lot more generous than a lot of stars are, let me put it that way (laughing). She gives you back an awful lot. Q. You've raced against Rachel Alexandra, why do you think Zenyatta is better than Rachel Alexandra? MIKE SMITH: You know, I wish they would have brought her here so we could have proved to the racing world what Zenyatta's really about. I think she proved it today. But like I said there was still more left there. I'm not going to go out and say I'm going to beat her, because that's just someone's opinion. But I would have gave anything to run against her. Q. You won the big race yesterday. You won the big race today. Does it get any better than this? JOHN SHIRREFFS: No, it doesn't. Today it was just -- today was like a really emotional and wonderful experience. Yesterday was great for Life is Sweet to have gotten her chance to shine. You know, Life is Sweet is the princess, and Zenyatta is the queen in my barn. MIKE SMITH: You're the king. How do you spell king? J-O-H-N. JOHN SHIRREFFS: A perfect weekend. Q. Can you talk about any social significance with Zenyatta beating all the boys, and are you interested in a match race against Rachel? JEROME MOSS: Well, the social significance is apparent, you know. Women are as good as men. That's it. If not better on occasion. Go for it. Take it. In regards to a match race, I believe that this would probably have been Zenyatta's last race. John has done a beautiful job bringing her along, and I think she's given what she has in a race like this. I think she deserves now to go out with her record in tact. That's what I think. And I haven't talked about it to John or my wife, as you can tell. Because we haven't talked about the future. We've just talked about today. So I'm answering your question. Now if we go out to dinner and have a different response, I'll let you know. How's that (laughing)? Q. Despite having a horse who up until today was 13 for 13, at least three of the four of you up there have suffered some slings and arrows along the way. Mike, you've been criticized sometimes for always just going around the long way outside. Jerry and John, you've just replicating last year's campaign against the same California females. When are you going to try something challenging? Does today's success for all three of you seem all the sweeter given some of the things you've heard in the past? JOHN SHIRREFFS: I'd have to say that this certainly makes up for anything that anybody would have thought because we ran against probably one of the best fields ever assembled for a Breeders' Cup Classic. So I think we put it all on the line, like they said. We were all in in the Classic. ERIC WING: Jerry? JEROME MOSS: Well, I think it was, as John said, the field was incredible. You know, you had the Belmont winner, the Kentucky Derby winner. Two of the best horses from England, you know, very well regarded. The Travers winner, the best turf wars in the country. These are some pretty good guys. Now I haven't seen the race again. I only watched it once. And you guys know better than I do who did good and who didn't do so good. But she faced them all. All you can do is beat who shows up, and she did, thank God. Q. Do you think this victory is all the sweeter given the way it unfolded on the track and some of the everyday criticisms that all jockeys face? MIKE SMITH: I mean, most of the time we went around them just because we could. They were all stopping in front of us. Why would I want to wait whenever she's just galloping by them like it's going out for a Sunday stroll? So she's a big, big horse. You take chances on cutting the corner. Especially if it's there like it was today, you take it because it was there. But if I have to tap on the brakes after going a mile and an eighth, and I have to step on the brakes or something to wait for some room when I can go around them, she's very, very big. So you have to get her running again. So I've always just come around because it was easy for her. There's been times she's bitten before, too, but no one remembers those times. But maybe they'll remember this today. Q. This surprise to all of you. Yesterday I told John Friday is sweet and Saturday could be sweeter, in his case especially. Now you did not duck a challenge. You conquered a new horizon. You beat the boys. Can there be a public campaign to nominate Zenyatta Horse of the Year like Dancing for the Stars? And I'd be happy to organize it. JEROME MOSS: Thank you so much. Whatever you want to do, I support. Q. Bob Baffert said that you kind of predicted she would do exactly what she did. She would win with her ears pricked. Why were you that confident? MIKE SMITH: Because he was giving me a hard time, and I just thought I'd give it back to him. He likes that, Bob does. He likes it when you give it back to him. He was telling me how Richard Kidd was going to win and this and that. And he said what do you think? And I said I'll win like this. And that's all I said. With her ears pricked. Q. How does this compare being in the Winner's Circle with Giacomo years ago, and is it more special today because it was a female horse against male rivals? ANN MOSS: We bred Giacomo, so it was so special to be able to do that. And John said he was going to do really well, and he did. And Jerry reminded me about four months after that I said, I want a really good filly. And we got her. I mean she's straight from heaven. She just is. She has wings just like Pep drew on the form today. She's a great, great gift. And every moment is just a pleasure. We've been in thrill since Giacomo, and this is even more. And it's just wonderful to have so many fans and that so many enjoy her, and that she's so feminine, too. She's just dancing and strutting and enjoying her beautiful majestic self, and that's a gift. Q. It seems that Zenyatta has really bonded with the American racing public. But what do you hope this filly and this story can do for the appreciation of racing by the wider American public? JEROME MOSS: Well, I think it's all about building stars. As an industry, we have to take time and think about how to do that. And I know racing secretaries aren't going to be happy to hear this. But if a maiden allowance race fills up with 12 or 13 horses, then split it, have two winners. You know, move people along. Make it more exciting for owners and for people that invest in this game to get perhaps a quicker reward, you know. Rather than perhaps just going for a race because it's got, you know, I'm not deprecating anybody, because the other race has ten horses ready to go. But I'm talking about a maiden allowance where trainers train those horses to run for the first time and run well. Then they've got to wait for a month to get another race? I mean, that's just ridiculous. It really is. If you're trying to build stars, that's at least an easy way to start doing it. Obviously, they create maybe graded stakes or maybe listed stakes, trying to get treats going for horses that are coming up, and try to notice the ones that are coming up, and trying to award them accordingly. Hopefully the press will support it. ERIC WING: As always, an unforgettable day. And everybody here in the crowd can say we witnessed history. But you four people made it happen. Congratulations on the performance today in the Breeders' Cup Classic by the great Zenyatta. End of FastScripts |
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