Earlier today, the $60,000 Pan Zareta Stakes was held at Fair Grounds. The 5 1/2-furlong turf sprint commemorates the great mare Pan Zareta, who was in the middle of her racing career at this time one-hundred years ago. 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 Personal Ensign 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 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 accidentally 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 eighth 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. Taking command at that point, 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. I have the suspicion that no horse will compile a similar record in Thoroughbred horse racing ever 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.
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