Malathaat Wins BC Distaff in Three-Way Photo Finish

Up in his seat in the Keeneland clubhouse, Todd Pletcher stood up and trained his eyeballs down below on the three hard-charging female Thoroughbreds who were barreling towards the finish line at breakneck speed late in the afternoon of Nov. 5.

When the three—Malathaat , the one he trained, on the outside, Blue Stripe  in the middle and Clairiere  on the rail—flashed under the wire, Pletcher, a man who keeps his emotions mostly in check, let loose. A little bit.

He thought he saw Malathaat's nose inch across the line first and the blue and white colors on the Shadwell Stable silks of jockey John Velazquez were just in front of the other two.

He pumped his fist. Maybe twice. There might have been a whoop.

Then, though, a pause. This race was close. Real close. Thisclose.

"I could see it was going to be close," Pletcher said. "Then, I got a little worried that I might have celebrated a little too much when they kept showing the replay and I thought it was going to be embarrassing if she didn't win this photo. I thought she had won, but I wasn't a million percent sure."

A hush fell over the throng of humanity that had stuffed into the iconic track. If Pletcher didn't know who won, they certainly didn't either. Agonizing minutes passed as officials poured over the photo at the end of the anticipated $2 million Longines Breeders' Cup Distaff (G1).

"Who won it?," Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas, standing in the horse path heading out to the track, asked. 

Finally, a decision. Yes indeed, the winner of the 1 1/8-mile heavyweight race for the ladies was Malathaat, who will surely win an Eclipse Award for the second straight year.

Malathaat was declared the winner of the race by a nose over Pozo de Luna's Blue Stripe, who, at 24-1, was the second-longest price in the eight-horse field.. Blue Stripe was another nose in front of Stonestreet Stables' Clairiere.

And so came to the close of the Distaff, which was discussed and dissected almost as much as Flightline's run-up to the Longines Breeders' Cup Classic (G1).

Malathaat, the Eclipse Award winner as the top 3-year-old filly in 2021, ends the year with four wins in six starts; for her career, she has 10 wins in 14 starts.

Whether or not she continues to sparkle on the racetrack remains to be seen. 

Gregory Clarke, who represented Shadwell at Keeneland, said Malathaat will head to the farm in Lexington for some R&R before a decision is made.

Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum, the head of Shadwell, passed away in March of 2021. The stable is now run by his daughter Sheikha Hissa and she decided that Malathaat would run this year at age 4.

"Why stop now?" Clarke said. "She's incredible. Keep going. She's at the top of her game. We'll see what the family wants to do."

Malathaat has never been a horse that has, during her career, blown fields away. Six of her 10 victories have been by less than a length.

The daughter of Curlin   added her nose victory to one by a neck (last year's Longines Kentucky Oaks, G1) at Churchill Downs and a head (last year's Central Bank Ashland Stakes, G1) at Keeneland.

Her Hall of Fame trainer has said before that Malathaat often times just does enough to get the job done. She certainly did that in the Distaff.

Pletcher and Clarke figured the Distaff would be a brawl as seven of the eight runners had grade 1 wins on their résumés.

Malathaat was the 5-2 second choice behind her stablemate, the brilliant 3-year-old Nest , owned by Repole Stable, Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners, and Michael House, the 7-5 favorite. She was ridden by Irad Ortiz Jr.

As the field turned into the Keeneland stretch, it was Briland Farm's Secret Oath , trained by Lukas, who had assumed the lead. The winner of this year's Kentucky Oaks was making a bid to upset this field at 14-1, but she would fade.

It set the stage for the final three. Malathaat, who was flying down the stretch, joined Blue Stripe and Clairiere and they made for a memorable final furlong.

The difficulty was separating them at the wire.

"I thought I got the bob, and then I wasn't sure," Velazquez said.

Blue Stripe, bred in Argentina, came out of nowhere to be in the Distaff mix. Trained by Marcelo Polanco, he had raised some eyebrows when he won two graded stakes races in California this year, the most recent being the Clement L. Hirsch Stakes (G1) at Del Mar on Aug. 6.

Still, with the known star power in the Distaff lineup, Blue Stripe was ignored. 

"I thought she got the last jump," Polanco said while standing on the track after conferring with jockey Hector Berrios. "No one believed in us but we did. It's always disappointing but I am happy. She did what she was supposed to do. She ran her ass off all the way to the finish line. We were running against the best."

Clairiere, who had defeated Malathaat twice this year, was also not going to give in under jockey Joel Rosario.

"She ran a fabulous race," Clairiere's Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen said. "It was just inches."

As jubilant as Pletcher was with Malathaat's effort, he was disappointed with Nest's fourth-place finish. She had earned favoritism after winning three straight races, the last being the Beldame (G2) by 9 3/4 lengths at the Belmont at Aqueduct meet on Oct. 9. Her last three wins came by a combined 26 1/4 lengths.

"That's the situation you are in when you run more than one horse in a race," Pletcher said about his reaction to Nest being beat by 3 1/4 lengths. "Nothing worked out well for Nest today. She was spinning her wheels around the first turn and was very wide the whole way around, I was concerned when they hit the first turn that it wasn't going to go her way."

The final time of the Distaff was 1:49.07. Malathaat returned $7.76. After Nest, the order of finish was Secret Oath, Search Results , Society , and Awake At Midnyte .