She does know she's important when she's out in the field.
Anybody goes up the fence.
Zenyatta will be the first one to walk over.
The other girls who sort of stand there going, Wow, I wonder what's over there.
She doesn't wander.
She knows exactly why they're there to see her.
And she walks over and she gives them her time.
She puts her head down.
If as young people or small people over the fence, she just has this special relationship with people.
Senior to the one thing that I really noticed about her was that she enjoyed that attention of her fan base and I think that she delighted in it just as much as we did.
She loves the public.
I think her entire team took a very unique and special approach with her.
The Mosses and John sheriffs were so wonderful and being generous with not only their time but with Zenyatta time.
And in making her available.
They could come and watch her behind graze.
They could touch her, they could patter, especially coming up to and around the Breeders Cup.
You know, nobody was turned away.
They embraced all these fans that wanted to see her and the energy that they were showing towards her.
And she really was sort of a people's champion.
After the Breeders Cup at the racetrack, people would stop their cars on Long Field Avenue when they brought her out to graze and people would get out of their cars and gather by the dozens and dozens of people that police had to come and ask them to move their cars and they wouldn't they wouldn't do it.
They just would not want to leave.
Zenyatta.
Zenyatta was very fortunate to have Jerry and and Jerry in and were very fortunate to have Zenyatta and John Sheriffs and Mike Smith and that whole gang, because Zenyatta treated them very, very well.
And they treated Zenyatta very, very well.
And it was a it was a really great community effort.
When Zenyatta was to be retired, two lanes and the Mosses and Will and Bill Farish at Lane's in Farm wanted to do something to really provide her East Coast fans a way of saying goodbye as they sent her into retirement to become a broodmare.
And so they contacted us about hosting a ceremony.
We really had no idea what type of crowd, what type of media attention it would get.
It was really the first time anything like this had been done, and it was a really cold day and we just weren't sure who would show up.
But it was amazing.
The fans began arriving early in the afternoon.
We estimated in the end we had about 1200 fans.
They were literally four people deep along the outside rail of the show ring.
It was unlike anything I've ever seen.
There were fans who had driven from New York and even Washington State.
I talked to a group of women from Wisconsin who had literally taken a day off from work, gotten in the car, driven to Lexington sales and yards for 20 minutes, got back in the car, drove all night to be at work the next day.
And that was the type of reaction she brought out in people.
What she meant to the American public.
The bond many people had with her was almost spiritual in nature.
She was an inspiration in ways that really never before seen.
Whatever mystical hold horses have over humans, it seemed to manifest itself through Zenyatta.
People stayed out there for hours, freezing to death just to get a glimpse of her.
It's amazing.
Everyone was so excited.
Everyone was so glad that she had come to Kentucky.
As she was being paraded, she would stop and she would get what a lot of horsemen call that look of eagles.
She would look at the crowd.
She would prick her ears.
She would kind of turn her head and let everyone get the photograph that they had been wanting.
They even got close enough to where you could rub your hands down her body.
It was thrilling.
It was one of the most memorable moments of my life.
She did her trademark dance, which had really, I think, endeared a lot of her fans to her.
And the crowd would just erupt into cheers.
That was just like being in the presence of a rock star.
Lanes and fans call up every day to check how she's doing.
Send cards.
You know, they've not stopped caring about her.
They still follow her day to day activity.
Whenever she put something on her website or Facebook, there's hundreds of comments and people liking the pictures and things like that.
She's definitely the only mare that we have on the farm that has her own social media website.
Photographers and people like that.
It's unreal.
She's now she's surpassed 150,000 followers on Facebook.
Social media has opened up a whole new avenue for the horseracing fan.
It was an absolutely brilliant format for teams and yada to have Zenyatta dot com.
You develop racing fans by giving them that connection to the horse.
Now she is and her broodmare career and everyone is interested in her offspring and what the future may hold.
Keeping that fan base informed will keep that spirit going.
I think a lot of the reason she has such a strong fan base is because what she represents, you know, she was the ultimate athlete, the best ambassador for racing that has been in a long time.
Everything she did was positive the way she ran.
All the money she's donated to charities, you know, she's just a symbol of the good.
I think that's why everybody loves her.
She's been a positive influence for every aspect of racing.
You can look at her statistics, which are clearly impressive, but they don't even go get close to why she was such a great star.
I think Zenyatta is one of those unique individuals, much like a secretariat.
And you don't have to follow racing.
You don't have to be a fan of thoroughbreds or understand the game to appreciate and love what they are.
I think a lot of the people who came to see her when she was here at Keeneland that night probably had never even been to a racetrack and they still had seen her on TV or read about her in the papers and it drew them to her.
I saw her race, and that's what made me happy.
That's what rocked my world.
Even after being here for three years, you know, you got there in the mornings and you pattern, you just pinch yourself.
She still has that wow factor.
Now.
Zenyatta romance as Diane has lost.
We've seen a tendency that has it.
But for how long?
Here comes Zenyatta.
She has singled out past the field and runs to the Final Four and seniority takes over the lead.
Senator, as he tries to run over Virginia is now two weeks in time.
How do you This one try.
Let's just watch.
Oh, this is Zenyatta and.