Zenyatta: will bid for a third Breeders' Cup success at Churchill Downs

  PICTURE: Edward Whitaker (racingpost.com/photos)  

Zenyatta Stakes reverts to Lady's Secret Stakes

ZENYATTA will, as previously reported, make her final appearance before the Breeders' Cup at the Oak Tree meeting at Hollywood Park on October 2.

However, she will not bid to extend her unbeaten record to 19 in a race named in her honour, because the proposed Zenyatta Stakes will revert to its original title, the Lady's Secret Stakes.

According to the Daily Racing Form, Zenyatta's connections were uneasy with the idea of the mare's running in a race named after her.

Oak Tree executive vice president Sherwood Chillingworth said: "The Mosses and John Shirreffs would rather we run the race in another name. When we renamed the race, she had been retired."

The $250,000 event is a 1m1/2f contest on the Cushion Track at Zenyatta's home base Hollywood Park, new home for the month-long Oak Tree meeting this year after it was moved from Santa Anita owing to worries over the track surface there.

Zenyatta won the Lady's Secret Stakes in 2008 and 2009 en route to famous victories at the Breeders' Cup.

The Oak Tree meeting,set to run from September 30-October 31, may head to Del Mar in 2011.