Bye Bye Melvin Takes Saranac in Final Strides
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Photo: Skip Dickstein
Bye Bye Melvin wins the Saranac Stakes at Saratoga Race Course
Trainer Graham Motion is glad that tough beats are not necessarily passed along through bloodlines.
Just six days after Alex Campbell Jr.'s Mean Mary, a 4-year-old daughter of the Dynaformer mare Karlovy Vary trained by Motion, lost a tense stretch duel with Rushing Fall by a neck in the Diana Stakes (G1T), her half brother by Uncle Mo , Bye Bye Melvin, helped even the score.
Third most of the way on a wet, slippery turf course, Campbell's Bye Bye Melvin caught the pacesetting Don Juan Kitten in the final strides to prevail by a head in the $100,000 Saranac Stakes (G3T) for 3-year-olds Aug 29 at Saratoga Race Course.
"He's a kind of late developer, this horse," Motion said. "It's been a little bit of a project, but I'm not surprised at the way he ran. He just slugged it out."
Rather than slugging, jockey John Velazquez believed Bye Bye Melvin was slipping and sliding, but nevertheless the homebred managed to reach the wire first on a course that was already yielding before an intense rainstorm added even more water to the mix.
"He was lugging in down the stretch and I had to get after him, and he was slipping and sliding, but he was good enough to get there," Velazquez said.
The victory came on the heels of a game second-place finish at 37-1 odds in the July 26 Jersey Derby Stakes at Monmouth Park that indicated the 3-year-old was rounding into form. Adding blinkers after that 3 1/2-length loss to Vanzzy, who was eighth and last in the Saranac, was the final piece of the puzzle
"I thought the Jersey Derby was a sneaky good race," said Motion, who also sent out Irish Mias to finish fifth. "The blinkers were the idea of my team at home. They just felt it might help him focus a little bit. I give them credit, my assistant Cat McGee and Skyler McKenna who gallops him every day. He's not easy in the morning, so I give them a lot of credit for the way he ran."
The victory was the third in nine starts for Bye Bye Melvin, who is the most recent of Karlovy Vary's three foals.
Though the race was officially listed at a mile, Danny Gargan, who trains 2-1 favorite Don Juan Kitten, didn't quite see it that way. After the wet conditions forced the Saranac to be shifted from the inner turf course to the Mellon course earlier in the day, the eight-furlong distance became problematic and the solution became a lengthy 175-foot run-up to the timer.
"They changed the distance of the race," Gargan exclaimed.
Ken and Sarah Ramsey's Don Juan Kitten led until the finish, though the only fraction posted was six furlongs in 1:14.97. He seemed home free after shaking off Embolden at the top of the stretch and opening a two-length lead at the eighth pole, but the race was one jump too long for him.
"With different circumstances and a bit of a firmer turf course, I think it could have made the difference for us," jockey Kendrick Carmouche said.
A son of Kitten's Joy, Don Juan Kitten finished 2 1/2 lengths ahead of Repole Stable's Bodecream, a son of Bodemeister .
The final time was 1:39.92. Bye Bye Melvin paid $41 to win.
"This was a huge step for him, and he could be a fun horse next year," Motion said.