International champion Cocoa Beach (Chi), by Stonewall Farm Stallions’ Doneraile Court, proved her class yet again with a valiant runner-up finish to the unbeaten Zenyatta in the featured $2 million Breeders’ Cup Ladies Classic (G1) on Ladies Day of the Breeders’ Cup World Thoroughbred Championships at Santa Anita on Oct. 24th.

Cocoa Beach has been a world traveler, with championship campaigns in her native land of Chile and her adopted country of Dubai, where she won the UAE 1000 Guineas and UAE Oaks earlier this season in stylish fashion. The brilliant filly moved to the States over the summer and quickly supplanted herself as a top distaffer in North America with a pair of wins in New York, including a win in the Grade 1 Beldame Stakes over last year’s champion Ginger Punch.

In the Ladies Classic, she would hook Ginger Punch again, as well as five other Grade 1 winners that comprised the best of the best loading in the same gate for the premier 1 1/8-mile event. Cocoa Beach broke cleanly in the field of eight and settled towards the rear with Zenyatta and stablemate Music Note.

At the rear early on, it would be those three that would settle the championship in the lane.

As the field rounded the far turn towards a stretch run to glory, Cocoa Beach bided her time along the inside while Music Note and Zenyatta circled the field on the outside. Straightening for home, Zenyatta out-moved Music Note and took the lead inside the sixteenth pole, but Cocoa Beach found a way through the inside and began to close furiously.

However, Zenyatta got the jump and hit the wire just a length and a half in front of a game Cocoa Beach. They stopped the clock in a crisp 1:46.85 over the local Pro-Ride surface. Cocoa Beach out-finished her stablemate Music Note - who like Cocoa Beach is also by a son of Seattle Slew - by a length and a half.

Owned by Godolphin Racing and trained by Saeed bin Suroor, Cocoa Beach has been on the board in all 11 lifetime starts, with eight wins, two seconds and a third. By Doneraile Court out of Visionera, by Edgy Diplomat, the bay filly - a Northern Hemisphere 4-year-old - now sports career earnings of $1,350,831.