In his final update at the end of a troubled summer at the nation’s most beloved venue, Steve Dennis pays tribute to a prolific trainer who snatched a share of the meet title from Chad Brown
From first to last, Linda Rice took Saratoga by the scruff of the neck. She trained the first winner on opening day (Bustin Bay) and trained the last winner on closing day (Lt. Mitchell) – and in between stood in the winner’s circle 33 times, which is enough to get a share of the trainer’s title at America’s showpiece track, her second meet-leading feat at Saratoga following her 2009 success.
Rice, 59, makes a habit of winning titles in New York. She has won the last five, three straight at Aqueduct and one at Belmont Park, and for her to run down Chad Brown at his hometown circuit and catch him in the final buzzer-beating stride is a phenomenal achievement.
She was five behind after the first race on Sunday, but Brown couldn’t buy a winner after that (see below) and Rice steadily reeled him in. The victory of Lt. Mitchell, in pushing the Brown-trained Fake Celebrity into the runner-up spot, was lagniappe.
“We won three yesterday [on Sunday] – that gave us a chance,” said Rice, after all the counting had been done. “I thought it was pretty unlikely, but you never know.
“The day before we were second beaten a neck, fourth beaten a head,”she went on. “But then yesterday after winning three, I thought, ‘well, maybe we have a chance.’ It’s been a tremendous year. A lot of highs and lows in racing. We’ve all seen them and we’ve all experienced them.
“We got off to a good start and it just continued. It’s been a great year, a lot of fun.”
Rice has brought horses back to the Spa time and time again, running three or four times through the meet and still retaining their form. Her particular genius manifested itself most brightly in Pioneering Spirit, who made his stakes breakthrough when taking the Bernard Baruch on Monday.
Nine days earlier Pioneering Spirit had finished third in the G1 Sword Dancer over a mile and a half. The Bernard Baruch was a cutback to a mile-sixteenth, but Rice saw that he could take that (and the swift turnaround) in his stride and sent him out again. That’s the sort of enterprise that wins trainers’ titles.
“The horse is just a dream, every horse you claim should be that good,” said Rice, having picked up Pioneering Spirit – who began his career with one run in Ireland for Jessica Harrington – for $40,000 before he had won his maiden.
“I think his distance limitations are boundless, he can run a mile and a half, he might go two miles, but he’s not pace-dependent per se. He can switch it up from short to long.
“The quick return? I think the key is to let young horses mature, and I think the more time you give them and allow them to mature into older horses, they’re less likely to get injured. I think the injuries happen with young horses and I think once they’re four or five they can handle racing more frequently.”
Jena Antonucci rightly captured the headlines at home and abroad when winning the G1 Travers with Arcangelo, but she had only three other runners at the Spa and has had only 84 starters in 2023.
Antonucci is brilliant but bijou; Rice, who had 147 starters at Saratoga alone, second only to Brown, is working similar magic on a daily basis.
Aqueduct picks up the New York baton on September 14 with the lumpily monikered ‘Belmont Park at the Big A’, the only meet Rice hasn’t won in the last 12 months.
The work goes on for Rice, often under the radar, usually out of the headlines, but regularly in the winner’s circle. Don’t bet against her clinching the calendar Grand Slam.
Good karma: Gary Contessa
Chalk players would not agree, but Contessa has a magic touch. On opening day he saddled 21-1 debutant Becky’s Joker to win the G3 Schuylerville, and in a dazzling piece of top-and-tailing he ruled the roost on closing day as well, sending out 54-1 ‘no-hoper’ Nutella Fella to win the G1 Hopeful – the longest-odds winner of the entire meet.
“He’s a moron in the gate,” said Contessa, deviating refreshingly from the usual banalities of ‘very nice horse’. “I have the New York gate crew to thank for this, they worked with him every day and straightened him out.”
Becky’s Joker and Nutella Fella (popular with spread bettors) were Contessa’s only two winners at the Spa, a wins-to-stakes ratio that can’t be improved upon.
Bad karma: Chad Brown
How can it be bad karma for the local boy made good, who tied for the trainers’ title, won three G1s and $5.4m? But as long as we take karma to be a temporary affliction, and accept that Brown is not eternally condemned to one of those arcane punishments meted out in Greek mythology, it’s been a bad-karma week.
McKulick, one of his personal favourites, was runner-up at long odds-on in the G2 Flower Bowl and star juvenile filly Ways And Means was runner-up in the G1 Spinaway, contributing to an enormously frustrating tally of 12 second-places during the final weekend.
Brown had a fine meeting by any metric, but his luck ran out at the last.
Number’s up
With a sense of drama that added a welcome intensity to the final-day feel, Linda Rice sent out Lt. Mitchell to win the very last race of the 40-day meet and grab herself a share of the trainers’ title, joining Chad Brown on 35 winners. It was Rice’s second Spa title and Brown’s sixth. Todd Pletcher (28) took third spot.
There was no such late fanfare attached to the riders’ championship. Irad Ortiz has had this in his saddlebag for a long time and signed for his fifth meet title with a bonanza return of 62 winners. His brother Jose Ortiz (37) and Manny Franco (36) joined him on the podium.
Klaravich Stables, the red-and-white vehicle of Seth Klarman, was far and away the leading owner with 22 winners. The only horse to win three races during the meet was the Rice-trained Ichiban, who went maiden, allowance, stakes.
One to watch: Bright Future
At a passing glance this Curlin colt may be the worst winner of the G1 Jockey Club Gold Cup since its inception back in 1919, a race that has deteriorated markedly over the last decade.
However, Bright Future hadn’t won anything better than an allowance before Saturday’s big race and had been crushed in his only previous attempt in stakes company.
As such, he may well be a case of nominative determinism: his name could well fit his future bill.
Unraced at two, two starts at three, he is the type of slow-burner you are advised never to return to once lit as he could go off in a shower of heat and light.
Well, on Saturday, he did, even though it’s not all that hard to beat Proxy. And in an up-for-grabs Breeders’ Cup Classic, who’s to say that he can’t do it again?
Quotes of the week
“Everybody is going to say she stole the race, maybe she did steal the race, but she stole it in a nice way.”
Call the cops! Parnac commits daylight robbery to win the G2 Flower Bowl from the front off Sunday-stroll fractions, but trainer Christophe Clement makes a convincing case for the defence.
“To win this, there’s some magic left in the world.”
Renowned racing writer Steven Crist, co-owner of Thin White Duke, who won the stakes named after Crist’s friend and mentor Harvey Pack, has a magic moment.
“Tears, happiness, joy. I’m ecstatic and proud. These are all the emotions I can think of right now. This filly is making me look good. This is such a big deal. I couldn’t be more blessed.”
Trainer John Ortiz (no relation) is over the moon, happy as a clam, the archetypal dog with two tails, after his unbeaten Brightwork stretched her streak to four in the G1 Spinaway.
Moment of the meet
There was a lot wrong with Saratoga this year, a point acknowledged by NYRA chief David O’Rourke when he told the Blood-Horse that “this was a tough meet”.
Not much of what happened over the 40 days and nights will live particularly long in recollection, but one race that will remain a permanent deposit in the memory bank is the G1 Alfred G. Vanderbilt, which produced the most thrilling duel between champion sprinter Elite Power and hard-case Gunite.
Gunite had a lead of two lengths at the sixteenth-pole and there isn’t an ounce of quit in his half-ton frame, but Elite Power finished off like a locomotive and nailed him by a head. It was a barnburner, a show-stopper, two top-class runners giving their absolute all.
The Saratoga Stretch bows to no man or woman in its devotion to Gunite, and was delighted when he got his revenge on Elite Power in the G1 Forego. Happy days.
• Visit the NYRA Saratoga website
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