Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra Take Top Billing in This Weekend's Races

by Patricia Woo | Jun 22 2009

This weekend, horse racing fans are in for a treat: Zenyatta, 2008's champion older female, and Rachel Alexandra, this year's Preakness Stakes winner, are both in action on Saturday, June 27. Zenyatta, who kicked off her 2009 campaign with her 10th straight win in the $150,000 Milady Stakes, will be racing in the $300,000 Vanity Invitation Handicap at Hollywood Park, a 1 1/8-mile test for fillies and mares 3 years old and up. And Rachel Alexandra will be making her first start since her Preakness victory in the $300,000 Mother Goose Stakes at Belmont Park, a 1 1/8-mile race for 3-year-old fillies.

Eclipse Award-winning Zenyatta may have had a slow start to her 2009 season, but her winning ways haven't changed; she has picked up right where she left off after winning the Breeders' Cup Ladies Classic last November. After being scratched from the $350,000 Gr. 2 Louisville Distaff on May 1 due to an off track, Zenyatta finally made her 5-year-old debut in the $150,000 Milady Stakes on May 23, a race she won with her signature last-to-first move. The John Shirreffs trainee is next scheduled to defend her Vanity Invitational Handicap title at Hollywood Park on June 27 and could face her Milady show-horse rival Allicansayis Wow. The speedy 4-year-old Patrick Biancone trainee won a feature at Hollywood Park in April before falling to third in the Milady and should again have the services of talented jockey Joe Talamo. Also nominated for the Vanity Invitational Handicap are Briecat, Dawn After Dawn, Forest Melody, Hot n' Dusty, Modification and You Lift Me Up; Life is Sweet, who finished second to Zenyatta in the Milady, is expected to contest the Hollywood Gold Cup instead.

Fresh off her Preakness Stakes win on May 16, top 3-year-old filly Rachel Alexandra will start next in the $300,000 Mother Goose Stakes at Belmont Park, also on June 27 - and according to co-owner Jess Jackson, the Medaglia d'Oro filly is "rested, healthy, and ready to run." A small field likely awaits the Steve Asmussen trainee, but more so because of the weather than because of Rachel Alexandra's presence, according to perpetual rival Justwhistledixie's trainer Kiaran McLaughlin. "We're trying to get a work into her," McLaughlin commented, but was otherwise noncommittal. Among those confirmed for the race are Godolphin Racing's Flashing, an A.P. Indy filly whose last outing was a win at Belmont Park in the Gr. 3 Nassau County Stakes in February; Malibu Prayer, who captured an allowance race at Philadelphia Park on June 2 by 7 1/4 lengths; and Don't Forget Gil, who has been training well under the supervision of Mark Hennig.

Don't miss out on any of the horse racing action! Bet on Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra at the Bodog Racebook!