Lady’s Secret to Zenyatta - A Mistake was Made

That foul odor you smell is emanating directly from the offices of the Oak Tree Association after yesterday’s announcement that they have renamed the Grade 1 Lady’s Secret Stakes . Starting next year, the race held every Fall at the Oak Tree at Santa Anita Meeting, will now be known as the Zenyatta Stakes. Don’t get me wrong, Zenyatta is a fabulous mare and it makes perfect sense that they want to honor her by naming a race the Zenyatta. We are all familiar with her fantastic list of accomplishments the past two years. The problem is the Oak Tree Association honored her by taking away needed recognition of one of the greatest mares ever to race in the United States. Lady’s Secret was everything good about racing. The beautiful gray daughter of Secretariat danced every dance and did so with class and beauty. Owned by the late Eugene Klein and trained by D. Wayne Lukas, Lady’s Secret won 25 of her 45 races in the mid 80s. Nicknamed the Iron Lady, she won eight consecutive stakes as a three-year-old in 1985. She followed that up with a Horse of the Year campaign in 1986. In her four-year-old season, Lady’s Secret won ten graded stakes, eight of which were Grade 1s. It was her second straight year with ten stakes wins. She ran against males four times, with a dominant win in the Whitney. Lady’s Secret won four stakes that year at Santa Anita, including an easy score in the Breeders’ Cup. It is a shame that she will no longer have a race named after her at the track where she won her most important race. The Hall-of-Famer does have a few other stakes named after her at other tracks, but they are much smaller and not fitting of one of racing’s royalty. Racing should revel in its rich and storied past. Lady’s Secret may be recent history, but make no mistake, she is an important part of the history of American racing. She was a grade 1 filly who deserves to have a grade 1 race named in her honor. Give Zenyatta her race, she certainly deserves the recognition, but do not strip the honor from such a marvelous race horse as Lady’s Secret to do so. Zenyatta won the El Encino, Milady, Vanity, and Clement L. Hirsch in California, and Santa Anita also has a number of other big stakes for females during the year. The powers that be in in California racing easily could have renamed any one of the many stakes races for older mares run in Southern California. Any one of those races being renamed would not have disrespected the history of racing and the fitting honor bestowed upon the great Lady’s Secret. Instead the Oak Tree Association chose to make the poorest possible decision and I, for one, think their decision stinks.