On Saturday, February 19th, 2011, eight fillies and mares will parade to the starting gate at Fair Grounds for a chance at winning the $60,000 Pan Zareta Stakes.
It is by no means a major stakes race. It is simply one of the many small stakes races around the country which are very fun to watch but have little to no impact on, say, the Eclipse awards.
Still, it’s nice to see a stakes race commemorating the great mare Pan Zareta.
I’m sure that many horse racing fans have never heard of Pan Zareta. If you are one of them, don’t feel bad. Even I hadn’t heard of her until recently.
A daughter of Abe Frank out of the Rancocas mare Caddie Griffith, Pan Zareta was born in 1910. She was not the kind of mare that you would compare to Zenyatta, Ruffian, or Lady’s Secret on class. In a career that spanned six years, she won just six stakes races. The majority of her victories came in little handicap races with purses often less than a thousand dollars. A sprinter, she won just over half of her total starts, an admirable feat but certainly nothing rare for a good horse.
However, when one realizes that she made 151 starts, winning 76 of them is a jaw-dropping feat. Feast your eyes on these various facts:
• In 1912, as a two-year-old, she made 19 starts while racing from January through December.
• In 1913, she made 33 starts, once again racing from January through December. She made seven starts in the month of August.
• In 1914, she made 28 starts, beginning in January and ending in December.
• In 1915, she made 26 starts from January through October.
• In 1916, she made 11 starts from January to March. Apparently an injury occurred after this, for she did not race again until January 1917.
• In 1917, she recorded her busiest season of all, starting 34 times from January to November.
• She retired with a record of 151 starts, 76 victories, 31 seconds, and 21 thirds. This equates to 128 top three finishes, which means that she failed to hit the board only 23 times!
• On seven occasions she carried 140 pounds or more, winning five of them. In one of her losses, she conceded Sir Edgar 41 actual pounds and was beaten only a neck!
• Only eight of her starts came against other fillies and mares. The other 143 came against males.
• She was favored in 91 of her starts, and was sent off at double-digit odds only five times.
• In one of her more remarkable races, she carried 146 pounds to a neck victory over Seneca, who carried only 100 pounds.
• She ran at 24 different racetracks.
• She defeated Kentucky Derby winner Old Rosebud by six lengths in a 1917 handicap race.
However, perhaps her most astonishing feat came at Juarez racetrack on February 10th, 1915. She was running in a five furlong match race against the speedy colt Joe Blair, to whom she was conceding 10 pounds. At the start, her jockey accidently caused her to blow the break, spotting her rival several lengths from the start. Joe Blair’s jockey took advantage of the situation by gunning his colt to the lead. The colt rattled off unbelievable fractions. He ran his first eight in :10 1/5, and his first quarter in :21 3/5. He continued these blazing fractions by running three-eighths in :33 2/5 and a half-mile in :44 4/5. However, Pan Zareta was inching closer and was only a head behind passing the eighth pole. She then drew off to two length victory while easing up at the finish. The final time was an incredible :57 1/5, a new American record. To quote the February 11th, 1915 edition of the Daily Racing Form, “It was declared by old-timers to be the most wonderful performance it had ever been their privilege to witness and owner-trainer H. S. Newman was overwhelmed with congratulations on all sides.”
Pan Zareta conducted what is without a doubt one of the greatest campaigns in the history of horse racing. Horses like her simply don’t exist anymore. She was a true hickory horse; capable of racing with frequency and success. Although she was best sprinting, she was capable of winning at up to a mile and did so on multiple occasions.
The unbelievable statistics of her career are simply mind boggling. Think of it this way – Pan Zareta starts 151 times. Zenyatta raced 20 times. Pan Zareta won 76 races. Zenyatta, Rachel Alexandra, Ruffian, and Personal Ensign won 55 races between them.
Don’t get me wrong, Zenyatta, Rachel Alexandra, Ruffian, and Personal Ensign were all truly great mares. They did things that Pan Zareta never did, and all achieved greatness through a variety of incredible feats. But they cannot even begin to match the longevity of Pan Zareta’s career; nor do they come anywhere near her number of starts and wins.
I have the suspicion that no horse will ever achieve these remarkable statistics in Thoroughbred horse racing again. To imagine a racehorse today undertaking such an incredible campaign is impossible. The days of horses running thirty or more times in a single year are over.
Sadly, Pan Zareta has been forgotten over the years, probably because the majority of her races came in handicap races. This is unfair, for she is a mare worth remembering. She was phenomenal – no doubt about it. She was one of the greatest mares that ever ran.
-Keelerman
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