American Turf Magazine
/ December-January 2015-2016
42
antibiotics and anti-inflammatory
drugs and requiring a drain to remove
excess fluid from her abdomen, it took
every ounce of the same considerable
courage she had exhibited in her rac-
ing career, but this battle was for her
life.
Horses almost never recover from
such serious infections but Rachel did,
in larger part due to a Rood and Rid-
dle veterinary assistant named Brent
Comer who grew so close to Rachel
that he eventually went to work for
Stonestreet taking care of his beloved
charge and all the horses at her home.
Whether or not there will ever be
another foal out of Rachel for him to
look after remains to be seen. She has
not been bred since Rachel’s Valen-
tina’s difficult arrival and according to
Jess Jackson’s widow, Barbara Banke,
who has embraced Stonestreet’s legacy
with enthusiasm, she likely never will
be bred again.
Zenyatta’s dam, Vertigineux, who
died in 2014, was barren her first year
at stud, but then produced three stakes
winning fillies in a row, the third of
which was Zenyatta. Before her death,
the daughter of Kris S., who died from
colic complications, had a dead foal
the year after Zenyatta and then six
more foals, one of which was the twice
winning Eblouissante by Bernardini, a
three-quarter sister to Zenyatta’s first
foal the colt Cozmic One. Her final
foal, a colt born in 2013 is a full brother
to Zenyatta by the late Street Cry, who
died at age 16 in 2014.
So both Zenyatta’s parents were gone
while Rachel’s live on. And there has
been even more tragedy for the once-
beaten beauty. Zenyatta’s 2014 filly by
War Front also died after a paddock
accident at Lane’s End Farm. She was
not bred for 2015 but is carrying a full
sibling to her late daughter as this is
being written.
Thus the lives of these two cham-
pions were still very much filled with
drama and life after racing was filled
with many highs and lows before their
first foals ever saw a starting gate.
Zenyatta still has time to produce a
daughter, but as the years wear on it
is less and less likely that Rachel will
ever have another foal, so it is lovely
that she has both a son and a daughter.
Things change quickly at the track
and there is little doubt that a mare as
big and lanky as Zenyatta was always
going to get later maturing foals than a
more precocious type like Rachel, who
was a stakes winner at two. Thus when
Zenyatta’s big, nervous son Cozmic
One, made his debut it was not likely
that he would lead all the way in a six
furlong sprint. Instead, he dawdled
along in last – and stayed there and
Rachel’s Valentina
Photo by Horsephotos.com/NTRA
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