John Shirreffs

http://video.aol.com/aolvideo/fanhouse/zenyatta-feature/652400546001

A horse named Giacomo won the 2005 Kentucky Derby as a 50-1 shot, the second-longest odds to win horse racing's most famous race. The man who trained Giacomo, and who has overseen Zenyatta for her entire career, is John Shirreffs, a low-key, bespectacled man who could pass for an insurance executive. He did not grow up around thoroughbreds, and got into the sport after volunteering to serve in Vietnam as a marine. "I kind of fell into it," says Shirreffs, 65, who apprenticed for years at the Kentucky horse farm owned by media baron Marshall Naify. He became a full-fledged trainer about 15 years ago.

Shirreffs doesn't have the pizazz of Baffert, the silver-haired Arizonan who's famous for his quips, or the gravitas of D. Wayne Lukas, who's the winners of 13 Triple Crown races and is usually easy to spot in his trademark white cowboy hat. But he has also never been penalized for using illegal drugs on his horses -- and with Zenyatta in particular, he's shown remarkable patience in a sport that is obsessed with youth and precocious prospects. Shirreffs did not believe Zenyatta was ready to race until late in her third year, after the lucrative Triple Crown events had been run.

"John is always cautious, he wants a horse to be in absolutely great shape, because you want the race to be a pleasant experience for the animal," says owner Jerry Moss. "It's just like with humans -- you want to feel good when you come to work."