On a December Sunday in 2010, Jerry Moss stood in the paddock at Hollywood Park, watching his prized mare Zenyatta parade before an adoring public in a well-attended retirement ceremony. Zenyatta had won 19 of 20 starts and was weeks away from being named Horse of the Year. On Zenyatta’s last weekend in California before she was flown to Kentucky, fans snapped photos and hugged the rails to be near the popular racehorse. “This is pretty amazing,” Moss said as he watched the scene unfold. “My desk is ridiculous. People sent tapes, photos, and moving tributes. It’s amazing what she means to people.” Moss, who died on Wednesday at the age of 88 at his home in Los Angeles, knew all about amazing things. Aside from his years of success as a Thoroughbred horse owner, Moss was a legend in modern music, the “M” in the historic label A&M records with longtime business partner Herb Alpert. The label was home to such famous acts as The Police, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, The Carpenters, Styx, Carole King, Peter Frampton, Janet Jackson, Burt Bacharach, Rita Coolidge, Cat Stevens, Captain and Tennille, Joe Cocker, and many more. Few homes from the 1970s through the 1990s with a turntable, an eight-track or CD player or a cassette deck were without ample recordings from the A&M label. Moss, who died of natural causes according to an obituary released by his family, had a decades-long involvement in racing. Jerome Moss was born in New York in 1935. After serving in the Army, Moss moved to California in 1960, and formed a record label with Alpert in 1962. By the 1970s, he became involved in racing, initially through claiming horses. One of Moss’s first major runners was Fighting Fit, a multiple stakes winner in the early 1980s. Later that decade, Moss raced such graded stakes winners as Aberuschka, Delicate Vine, Galunpe, and Solva. Through the years, his runners were under the care of a large group of well-known California-based trainers, including Hall of Famers Bobby Frankel, Richard Mandella, and Charles Whittingham, as well as Brian Mayberry John Sadler, John Shirreffs, and Steve Sherman. With his first wife Ann, Moss campaigned runners such as Ruhlmann, who won the 1990 Santa Anita Handicap and seven other stakes that year and in the late 1980s; and Sardula, who won the 1994 Kentucky Oaks. The first decade of this century was a peak period of success for the Mosses. Giacomo, named for Police lead singer Sting’s son, won the 2005 Kentucky Derby in an upset. Alpha Kitten, Madeo, Spellbinder, and Tarlow were other graded stakes winners in the Mosses familiar green and pink silks. The Mosses won the Santa Anita Derby twice – with Tiago in 2007 and a decade later with Gormley. Zenyatta was named for the Police album Zenyatta Mondatta. Trained by Shirreffs, Zenyatta had her debut at Hollywood Park in November 2007, and won the first of 17 stakes in the El Encino Stakes at Santa Anita in January 2008. At the end of that year, Zenyatta extended her unbeaten streak to nine races with a win in the Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic at Santa Anita, a race previously and once again known as the Breeders’ Cup Distaff. When Zenyatta had her 2009 debut in Milady Handicap at Hollywood Park in late May, a fan base was growing – and rapidly. She won the Milady and three consecutive Grade 1 races from late June to early October before the decision was made to start the then 5-year-old mare against males in the BC Classic at Santa Anita. Sent off as the 5-2 favorite in a field of 12, Zenyatta closed from last and passed 10 rivals in the final half-mile to reach the front with a length to spare, an electrifying win that at the time was believed to be her final start. Within two months, Jerry Moss had changed his mind. In January 2010, Moss announced Zenyatta would race for another season. “I got very emotional after she won the Breeders’ Cup and thought what better way to retire,” Moss told Daily Racing Form in January 2010. After watching her work on a Saturday morning in January 2010, Moss reversed course. “Seeing her today, she’s so radiant,” he said that day. Zenyatta won her first five starts in 2010, all in Grade 1 races for fillies and mares at Del Mar, Hollywood Park, Oaklawn Park, and Santa Anita, before she was beaten a head by Blame in the BC Classic at Churchill Downs that November. Zenyatta closed from last of 12 in that race, and overcame traffic on the turn to just miss catching Blame in her final start. Moss had a well-publicized charitable side. In 2020, Moss made a $25 million donation to the Music Center in Los Angeles for an outdoor concert venue. He funded scholarships at UCLA for students of architecture, art, and music. In 2009 and 2010, Moss donated to a non-profit organization that provided free health care to thousands of Southern California residents at clinics conducted at The Forum, adjacent to Hollywood Park, and the Los Angeles Sports Arena. Moss served on the California Horse Racing Board from 2004 to 2012. Jerry and Ann Moss divorced in 2017. In 2019, Moss married Tina Morse. Funeral services are scheduled in Los Angeles this weekend. Moss’s final runner before his passing was Nolde, who won a starter allowance for Sherman at the Sonoma County Fair in Santa Rosa on Aug. 12. Nolde won the Grade 2 Del Mar Derby for Shirreffs in 2019. On Saturday at Del Mar, Hula Candy, a 5-year-old horse owned by Jerry and Tina Moss, is scheduled to start in the second race, a maiden race on turf.