Only three weekends remain in this 146th Saratoga Race meeting and the final push to Labor Day starts with the iconic and historic Grade 1 $600,000 Alabama Stakes.
The Alabama is for 3-year-old fillies and is run at 10 furlongs, the longest these fillies will ever run against their own gender. Sadly, race fans won’t see the best filly of this generation Saturday. That would be Untapable and she’s still recovering from getting dusted against the boys in the Grade 1 $1 million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park.
That leaves the door open for Todd Pletcher (20 wins on the meet, 10 ahead of Chad Brown), who trains horses with the aplomb of a James Bond super villain, to win this race for a second year in a row.
Not only that, he could win the Coaching Club American Oaks and the Alabama for the second straight year. Princess of Sylmar made the Saratoga sweep a year ago and now Stopchargingmaria could do the same.
She won the Grade II Black Eyed Susan at Pimlico earlier in the spring and then was dominant in the Coaching Club. She comes off a sparkling four-furlong breeze in 47.52 and appears ready to make the sweep for Pletcher.
“I think the [Coaching Club] was her best performance to date,” said Pletcher. “She seemed be training well leading into that, and we’ve seen more of the same. We’re pleased with the way she ran and with the way she has come out of it. Everything has gone according to schedule. She has two mile-and-an-eighth races under her belt [in her two most recent starts], and has three wins at a mile and an eighth [in her career], so you just hope she can get a mile and a quarter. With the indications we’ve been seeing, we’re optimistic she can.”
Pletcher also goes deep on his bench to saddle Got Lucky, a filly not quite as swift as Stopchargingmaria. Got Lucky has the better top-side pedigree being a daughter of A.P. Indy, yet she hasn’t proved to be of elite caliber. On the same day Stopchargingmaria breezed a half-mile in 47.52, Got Lucky went the same distance in 48.25.
“We’ve been pointing for this since her allowance win,” said Pletcher. “She’s by A.P. Indy, and we’ve always felt that more distance would be good for her. We hope that proves to be true.”
Not to be outdone in the numbers-of-horses-saddled department is Hall of Famer Bill Mott. He sends out three horses including Miss Besilu, America and Size. Miss Besilu and America were third and fourth to Stopchargingmaria in the Coaching Club, while Size won the Grade III Iowa Oaks.
Still, without Untapable in this field, the Alabama feels deflated. Untapable had been so dominant in her own class that she needed to prove whether or not she belonged in with colts. She had already proved she no longer belonged with her own gender, but a return back to the fillies and mares may be the best course of action for the daughter of Tapit.
Untapable never got a chance to run her race in the Haskell.
“The horse next to us (Social Inclusion) acted up in the gate a little bit, so she got a little fussy and she didn’t get away well,” jockey Rosie Napravnik told The Star-Ledger after the Haskell. “We had the widest of everybody’s trip; she ran a hell of a race and she ran as hard as she could. That’s the most I ever ask of her; she’s extremely big-hearted.”
The Alabama would have been a great test of her stamina, yet at the same time wouldn’t have proven anything that everyone didn’t know already. In her own class, she’d merely be racing against herself, running for less dollars and merely solidifying Champion Three-Year-Old Filly. That’s a lock.
Stepping out against the boys in a $1-million race was a necessary evil to see where she is in the grand scheme of the greater picture. Untapable doesn’t run in the Haskell unless her connections are making a bid for Horse of the Year.
Five years ago Untapable’s trainer Steve Asmussen took a similar tact with Rachel Alexandra. Up until the Haskell she had won her races against her gender by such explosive margins that it served no greater point to have her keep doing it again and again. Three- and four-horse fields don’t ignite the imagination.
So Amsussen tested her against the boys in the Haskell and she did not disappoint. She kicked clear to win by six over Summer Bird, the eventual Travers Stakes winner. Rachel then went on to run against older males in the Woodward Stakes on the closing weekend. We all know how that ended.
Untapable’s absence from the Alabama looks more somber cast in the light of her Haskell loss, but running her against the boys at that time was the right move for the horse. It was a measuring stick. It didn’t go quite as planned, but that’s fine.
She hasn’t recorded a workout since July 21, the week before the Haskell, which is an indicator that the race took a lot out of her.
The $1 million Grade I Cotillion at Parx Racing on September 20 is likely her next start, against her own class, for a whole lot of dough, to reassert herself heading to this fall’s Breeders’ Cup.
