Triumph turned to tragedy in split seconds March 27 in the $1.5 million Dubai Golden Shaheen Sponsored by Gulf News (G1).
LLP Performance Horse's Zenden turned in a brilliant performance, leading the way throughout in the 1,200-meter (six-furlong) event and drawing away from his rivals in the stretch en route to his first top-level score. The final time was 1:09.01, a track record.
But the 5-year-old son of Fed Biz went wrong just after the wire, unseating jockey Antonio Fresu, with Zendan clearly having a severe injury to his front left leg. He was humanely euthanized minutes later on the track with a compound fracture, trainer Carlos David confirmed when reached Saturday by BloodHorse.
David accompanied Zenden to Dubai from their Florida base and saddled his first grade 1 winner, a 50-1 shot.
"There's no celebration or anything like that; I'm devastated," he said. "I would rather not win the race and have my horse back, a thousand times. I was hugging my horse while they put him down. I was able to say goodbye to him but there was going to be no way to fix his leg. No money, no trophy is going to bring my horse back."
Fresu walked away after the accident and appeared to be uninjured, according to the international broadcast covering the race, which first reported the loss of the horse and status of the jockey.
Zenden came into the Golden Shaheen off a Feb. 13 victory in the Pelican Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs. He put in a pair of three-furlong works at Palm Meadows Training center before shipping for the Golden Shaheen, his first start at the grade 1 level—one March 6 in :38 1/5 and one Feb. 6, a week before the Pelican, in :37 3/5. He also breezed at Meydan, where he went three furlongs in :37 1/5 March 23 as part of an open gallop or "two-minute lick."
"We were really excited, he was training so good," David said. "He just liked it here and we were really excited because everybody kept making comments about how good he looked. At 50-1, you really have no pressure because you're not the favorite, you're the underdog. But when a horse is happy, they're going to run big."
Zenden looked to have an unfavorable draw on the outside of a 13-horse field, but he made a swift move early to take a rail position, quickly gained the advantage, and carried on to a 3 1/4-length victory. Red le Zele was second, and Canvassed finished third.
The horse's owners will remain in Dubai while a necropsy is performed, David said. The trainer was set to return to the United States Saturday evening.
David, a native of Colombia who is now a U.S. citizen, took out his license in 2017 and enjoyed his best year last season, with career-high earnings of $1,616,421 from 231 starters and a 52% in-the-money rate. He started out in the industry as a hotwalker and groom for Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott, learned to ride at Stonerside's training center in Aiken, S.C., and returned to work for Mott as an exercise rider.
He also worked for Seth Benzel before spending five years as an assistant to Jason Servis, the trainer who was federally indicted last March along with 26 others on charges related to conspiracies to manufacture, distribute, and administer adulterated or misbranded performance-enhancing drugs administered to racehorses, along with separate, additional charges of mail and wire fraud conspiracy.
Critics took to social media to mention the association with Servis in the wake of the race.
"I know it's something that is always going to unfortunately fall on me because I used to work for the guy," said David. "I left their operation long before everything happened. I'm not going to sit down and try to explain to everybody the way I do things. A lot of the people who are making comments don't know me and don't know my barn. How can they say anything about the horse being treated with this and that when they don't even let us have Lasix over here?
"The people who have seen me work, they know how much I love my horses. They're like my kids. I've been crying since the moment that horse broke down. It's really hard. I've never had a horse break down in a race since I've been a trainer."
Bred in Kentucky by Brent and Beth Harris out of the Sharp Humor mare You Laughin, Zenden was the fourth of seven foals out of his dam, who dropped an Audible colt March 8. He went through the auction ring twice: as a $47,000 purchase by VEB Racing Stable Corp. from Potrero Stables' consignment to the Ocala Breeders' Sales 2018 June 2-Year-Olds and Horses of Racing Age Sale, and as a $7,500 purchase by South Legacy Stables from Blandford Stud's consignment to the 2017 Keeneland September Yearling Sale. He had six wins and three seconds from 15 starts, with earnings of $1,131,760.
David said he hopes Meydan will commemorate Zenden for his accomplishment.
"All I want is for them to make some kind of memorial for him. He broke the track record, he won the race," he said.
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