Alabama Breakthrough for Embellish the Lace

Embellish the Lace streaks into the stretch with a commanding lead in the Grade 1, $600,000 Alabama Stakes on Saturday at Saratoga Race Course. (Photo by Arianna Spadoni/NYRA)
Embellish the Lace seized command shortly after the start on the Grade 1 Alabama Stakes on Saturday at Saratoga Race Course, and the three-year-old Super Saver filly dominated from beginning to end to nail down her first career stakes win.
Embellish the Lace entered off a disappointing ninth-place finish in the Grade 1 Mother Goose Stakes on June 27 that came after she flashed huge potential with consecutive wins by a combined margin of 25 lengths.
In the $600,000 Alabama, she more than made amends for the Mother Goose loss. Ridden by Javier Castellano, Embellish the Lace was unchallenged through a half-mile in :48.38 and three-quarters of a mile in 1:12.85. She opened up a commanding lead entering the stretch, where I’m a Chatterbox closed powerfully to provide a challenge late.
I’m a Chatterbox, who got off to a sluggish start, made up ground on Embellish the Lace in the stretch but never seriously threatened the winner, who prevailed by 1 ¼ lengths and completed 1 ¼ miles in 2:01.97.
“I didn’t expect her to be on the lead, but nobody went. We put up good numbers all the way, and it paid off,” Castellano said. “I tried to rate a little bit the first turn but nobody wanted to take it, so I took it. I knew they were coming, but the way she turned for home, I had so much confidence. When I asked her a little bit, she took off.”
Trained by Tony Dutrow for owners Alex and JoAnn Lieblong, Embellish the Lace improved to three wins in five career starts and boosted her career bankroll from $53,340 to $413,340 with the winner’s share of the Alabama purse.
The magnitude of the victory in the historic Alabama was not lost on Dutrow.
“I always hoped of winning a race like that, and when it comes, it's just so gratifying, so humbling, so magical,” Dutrow said. “And, special is a great word which sums up all that.”
I’m a Chatterbox was 3 ½ lengths clear of third-place finisher Curalina.
Bred in Kentucky by WinStar Farm out of stakes-placed Expanse, by Distant View, Embellish the Lace is a half-sister (same dam [mother], different sire [father]) to 2010 Travers Stakes winner Afleet Express.
For an Equibase chart, click here.
EMBELLISH THE LACE POWERS TO THE FINISH

Photo by Adam Coglianese/NYRA