With the end-of-season championship skirmishes hoving into view, Steve Dennis reflects on another glorious 40-day stand at the Spa
Summer’s over. A look at the calendar is one way to know, another is the urge to rifle through the closet in search of something with longer sleeves. A third, and more definitive measurement of the changing seasons, is the fact that Saratoga is over for another year.
The 40 days are done, and we know a few things now. We know that ten-length Travers winner Sovereignty is the best three-year-old in the land, the front-runner for Horse of the Year. We know that Chad Brown will somehow always find a way to win the G1 Diana, getting that particular job done first thing out of the gate with Excellent Truth, a ninth Diana in the last decade.
We know that Sierra Leone is probably the best older horse around, the recollection of his victory in the Whitney from a hotly contested field superseding the fresh memory of his defeat in the Jockey Club Gold Cup, in which he hit the place after a slightly tribulatious route. He beat recent Pacific Classic winner Fierceness fair and square in the Whitney, so he must hold the upper hand at present.
Thorpedo Anna, the reigning Horse of the Year, is not as powerful this campaign but still has a fearsome A-game and played it successfully in the G1 Personal Ensign; Todd Pletcher has the best juveniles in Ted Noffey and Tommy Jo, easy winners of the G1 Hopeful and G1 Spinaway respectively; the route-running turf horses Stateside again look inferior to their European counterparts if the outcome of the G1 Sword Dancer is a guide, with the winner El Cordobes a way down the pecking order over there. We know these things now.
Yet given that we all also know racing is a sport of certainties and uncertainties, frequently so closely entwined as to be almost indivisible from each other, there is little point in sitting back with a cold one and thinking that what we know is all we need to know. Things change, summer becomes fall, apparent truths become obvious falsehoods.
Perhaps the three-year-old colts aren’t up to snuff this year, in a broader sense. Journalism was soundly beaten by Fierceness in what was essentially a match for that Pacific Classic; perhaps it’s an older-horse autumn, as it so often is. Maybe Thorpedo Anna is clinging to power only by her horseshoe nails, and G1 Alabama winner Nitrogen is ready to usurp her status on the distaff side.
Two-year-olds come and go like commuters at Grand Central station, so any supremacy held by Pletcher’s pair may last only until their next start. They might have peaked already, for there is nothing so alluringly deceptive as juvenile form.
Another blissful summer at Saratoga has given us so much. Its pleasure remains eternally undiminished even though for the time being we have more Saratoga than usual, until Belmont is finished and the month of June becomes a time of delicious anticipation again rather than raceday entertainment, when opening day is a giddy thrill instead of simply re-opening day.
Sovereignty, Sierra Leone, Antiquarian, Scottish Lassie, World Beater, Deterministic, Nitrogen, Book’em Danno, Patch Adams, Kilwin, Bellezza and all those other 40-day heroes helped set the tone of summer, left us thinking that we know a few things, but horse racing isn’t always like that. You surely don’t need to be told.
Saratoga’s gone, and so is the summer. Change is in the air.
Horse of the meet
If Sovereignty was the superhero of the Spa summer, there’s a strong case for nominating Book’em Danno as his spunky sidekick after the Saratogaphile continued his love affair with the upstate NY track.
Impressive victories in the G1 Forego and the G2 Alfred G Vanderbilt took the sprinter’s record here to four-for-five, and his versatility in terms of distance – he can outrun them at six and seven furlongs – gives trainer Derek Ryan plenty of options. The four-year-old is a gelding, so injury apart there’s nothing to stop him coming back year after year – do we have a new ‘Sultan of Saratoga’ in the making?
Trainer of the meet
Todd Pletcher shared the overall title with Chad Brown, the pair locked on 32 wins apiece after closing day, but away from these two heavyweights the campaign overseen by Miguel Clement (right) was superlative. In his first Spa meet since taking over his late father Christophe’s barn he sent out 18 winners and banked $2.3m, ranking fourth for wins and purses alike.
A standout highlight was Deterministic winning the G1 Fourstardave, but there was also Graded success for Bellezza (G2 Flower Bowl), Far Bridge (G2 Bowling Green), La Mehana (G2 Glens Falls) and Ozara (G2 Ballston Spa). The old man would be very proud.
Jockey of the meet
No wonder Irad Ortiz (right) wins so often, sometimes he rides two horses in the same race. The photo of Ortiz momentarily perched on the back of White Abarrio in his unsuccessful attempt to avoid being unseated from Mindframe in the G1 Jockey Club Gold Cup is liable to win awards, like its acrobatic subject.
He was leading rider here for the seventh time with 59 wins, earning $5.3m; although G1 glory was absent there were high-profile results on Leslie’s Rose (G2 Shuvee) and Halina’s Forte (G2 Honorable Miss) and seven other stakes wins. He’s hard to stop even with one mount per race.
Owner of the meet
Mike Repole was involved with the most winners (14), Godolphin won most money ($2.2m), but it was a phenomenal closing weekend for Spendthrift Farm and its owner Eric Gustavson.
Those familiar purple and orange colours were carried into the winner’s circle by Tommy Jo (G1 Spinaway, by 6½ lengths} and Ted Noffey (G1 Hopeful, by 8½ lengths), both trained by Todd Pletcher, both by Into Mischief, both unbeaten in two starts, both on the long trail a-winding that runs through the Breeders’ Cup to Churchill Downs next spring. To have one such juvenile prospect would be a thrill, to have two is remarkable.
Race of the meet
To pass over a ten-length Travers romp seems perverse, but for all its magnitude and merit there were more exciting contests that afternoon.
Thorpedo Anna had the G1 Personal Ensign by the throat before the gates opened and opinions hadn’t moved as she turned for home, but the unheralded Dorth Vader had other plans. From the eighth-pole in the race was in the balance, Thorpedo Anna the immovable object on the lead, Dorth Vader the irresistible force shrinking the gap with every stride. In the last 30 yards their eyes met, but their noses never quite did. Anna by an inch at the wire.
Quotes of the meet
“This is what dreams are made of. You wake up every morning and you come to work hoping one day one of these horses comes along.”
Dreams became reality for Junior Alvarado aboard the brilliant Sovereignty, mighty winner of the Travers
“All my winners are special to me. Every single one counts to win the title, so that’s why they’re all special.”
Irad Ortiz (right) had 59 reasons to be cheerful as he made his way inexorably to the jockeys’ title
“I had two or three races on my bucket list and the one that was left was the Travers. It’s very satisfying and gratifying to get that done.”
Bill Mott, trainer of Sovereignty, ticks off another box in a long and glorious career
“My first goal was just let him be faster than me and he’s definitely accomplished that.”
Ned Toffey on Ted Noffey – the general manager of Spendthrift Farm on the Hopeful winner – whose name was inspired by a Spooneresque mis-spelling
“There’s nothing better to me in racing than to win a Grade 1 at Saratoga – that is really huge in this business.”
Bob Baffert (left), winner of six Kentucky Derbys, lends a surprising perspective to the victory of Hope Road in the G1 Ballerina
“That’s horse racing.”
Chad Brown in philosophical mode after Sierra Leone’s unlucky trip in the Jockey Club Gold Cup, summing up the attraction of the sport
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