#zenytta

[myebi]

This video is simply stunning holy hell

[animerunner]

I have a bit of a story to tell.

As quiet a bit of the horse racing fan community knows, this is Eblouissante. For my followers who don't have a clue who she is its quiet simple. She is the younger half sister (same mother different father) to one of the most popular modern day racehorses, Zenyatta, who won 19 straight races in her career only losing in her last start by a nose. 

As you can expect little sister here has quiet a pair of shoes to fill, literally.

This Friday she will make her anticipated debut at Hollywood Park going a mile and a sixteenth over the main track. Almost five years to the day that her big sister made her debut in a six furlong race on Thanksgiving Day of 2007. But this will almost a year to the day anniversary for something special to me.

In the above photos you can see me posing for the camera with Eby (what I sometimes refer to her as when I don't feel like calling her by her full name). Unfortuanetly since this was before I got my really nice camera in December this was taken with a point and shoot in low lighting. But the memories are very much intact and will go down as one of my favorites.

You see last November I worked up the courage (pushed slightly by someone who had all ready been back to see her) to ask John Sheriffs to come visit the next morning to visit her at the backstretch. It involved some very coordinated planning, making sure I had a conversation starter (or rather a way to get his attention), making sure I was there ahead of the one race that weekend he had a starter in (literally this was my only chance to ask him), and flat out courage.

On Friday November 18th of last year a half terrified, half excited me managed to stammer out my question all the while my right leg was shaking like a leaf in the wind. To which he said yes to instructing me to come next morning and he would call me back so I could meet her.

So I was up bright and early on Saturday morning despite lack of sleep due to some crazy travel and at the racetrack backside. We told the gate guy why we were here. He paused for a second reaching for the phone to call John Sheriffs to confirm we were here for that before just handing us a guest sign in sheet telling us to sign in and then we would be allowed to go back.

We walked about the half mile distance to his barn which was at the back corner of the track. Where upon there and saying why we were there he escorted us back to Eby's stall (also Zenyatta's old stall). The entire visit is captured in a set of photos above where we got to pet, feed a carrot (thanks to Zenyatta's old exercise rider Steve Willard, who I recognized but couldn't place at first, literally realized who he was after we left and one of the grooms (not sure if it was Zenyatta's old groom or not), and just flat out cuddle with the lovable giant (she was 16 hands at the time of the visit, she is now all ready topping 17!) of a filly.

I came back to visit her excited to meet the little sister of a racehorse who I had loved and been inspired by so much. I walked away in love with the filly for who she was, not who her family was.

And anyone who has met Eby will back me up on this. She is one of the most lovable horses you may meet at the racetrack. She will cuddle likes to be petted (when she isn't poking her head in and out of the stall to check us out like she did on this visit). And just excited to one day see her race.

One of the things I took away from the visit was her size. At the age of two she was all ready really tall standing at 16 hands.  And she wasn't done growing yet. I wasn't shocked at all when I heard earlier this year that she was all ready topping 17 hands.

So it was no shock to me that its taken her so long to make her debut. In spite of so many complaints about how many workouts from others and me and several others saying it was due to her size (she had several growth spurts after this visit supposedly causing breaks in training, they were originally hoping to debut her over the summer) she did before debuting I knew that Mr. Sheriffs was simply taken his time to make sure she wasn't just ready physically, but also mentally. The later switch finally coming on late last summer when her workouts became increasingly faster out of the blue.

So I'm assuming if she is finally racing that Mr. Sheriffs is positive she is finally ready to take on a field.

And you know what, win or lose. Be a flunkie or follow in her sister's footsteps (she comes from a really nice female family). I will always be a fan of her. And I hope that this Friday afternoon when she makes her debut that she comes home safe. But most of all I would love her to win.