BH 100: Covered Up

This feature originally appeared in the August 20, 2016 issue of BloodHorse.

Saratoga’s Alabama Stakes (gr. I), run Aug. 20 this year, has long been considered a top race for 3-year-old fillies. Run at 11⁄4 miles at historic Saratoga Race Course in mid-summer, it bridges the major races of the spring and early summer and the championship-shaping events for older fillies and mares come autumn.

While race reports of the Alabama have always received plenty of coverage inside the pages of BloodHorse, the race, which more often than not coincides with the headline-grabbing yearling sales across the street at Fasig-Tipton, rarely makes an appearance on the cover.

A grade I event since the graded stakes system was instituted in 1973, the Alabama has been an important fixture from the time it was first run in 1872. As for the connection of the name of a southern state gracing a race run in upstate New York, the moniker comes from William Cottrell of Mobile, Ala., who apparently was too modest to have a race named for him.

Some of the more memorable stories of recent times…

One of the toughest reports in The Blood-Horse was the 1978 race story of the Alabama covered by correspondent William H. Rudy. The day—Aug. 12—started out with great promise despite a sloppy track from overnight rain, with Seattle Slew winning his second race as a 4-year-old earlier on the card.

Sally Gibson’s Caesar’s Wish went to the post as the 4-5 favorite in the Alabama; however, she did not finish the race.

“From the beginning, Caesar’s Wish was a runner,” Rudy wrote in his lead in the Aug. 21 issue. “From the time she came to the track, generous Caesar’s Wish always gave all she had, gave it as long as she could—and almost always that was long enough.

“Caesar’s Wish was running in the early part of Saratoga’s Alabama (gr. I). It was the 98th running of the ancient stakes inaugurated in 1872, a race won by many of the greatest fillies of the American Turf, and Caesar’s Wish was in their tradition odds-on to add her name to the list of winners. Midway into the race, with furlongs still to go, Caesar’s Wish was running on the rail, holding the lead narrowly. Suddenly she faltered. Still she ran on, but she was giving way rapidly as rival after rival swept by.

“A furlong later she was dead. She had struggled more than a furlong on the heart that had carried her to victory after victory as a 2- and 3-year-old. A ruptured pulmonary artery, suffered at perhaps the five-eighths pole, was snuffing out her life. She came to a standstill and collapsed.”

Later he wrote:

“There was no room for second thoughts. It was not the track—(trainer Richard) Small had said she did not care what she raced over—nor the pace, nor a misstep. Caesar’s Wish had just gone as far as she was meant to go, and she went there running.”

The second choice in the race, and the eventual winner, was Newstead Farm’s White Star Line, a five-time stakes winner in 1978 for trainer Woody Stephens. To show the depth of the 3-year-old filly class, White Star Line won the La Troienne Stakes, Kentucky Oaks (gr. I), Test Stakes (gr. III), Alabama, and Delaware Oaks (gr. I)…and wasn’t the champion. That went to Mrs. John Galbreath’s Tempest Queen, who finished third in the Alabama but won seven of her 13 starts including graded wins in the Poinsettia Stakes, Acorn Stakes, Gazelle Handicap, and Spinster Stakes.

Adding to the stellar six-horse cast of that year’s Alabama was L’Alezane, Canada’s Horse of the Year and champion juvenile filly of 1977. In what could have been, Lakeville Miss, the Eclipse Award-winning juvenile filly of 1977, was scratched due to some filling in an ankle.

Another Alabama-winning filly who landed the Test, the Beldame Stakes (gr. I), and Athenia Handicap (gr. IIIT) and failed to win the filly championship was Stephen Clark’s Love Sign in 1980. The championship went, of course, to Genuine Risk, who had beaten the boys in the Kentucky Derby (gr. I) that spring. Another filly from that crop, Bold ’n Determined, would join Genuine Risk in the Hall of Fame.

Favored in the centennial running of the Alabama in 1980 was Calumet’s Sugar and Spice, who could do no better than finish third under Jeff Fell.

Love Sign took the field wire-to-wire, the Test exacta of Love Sign and Weber City Miss running one-two again.

Rudy wrote: “It was a deserved triumph for the good-looking, leggy, brown daughter of Clark’s Graustark mare, Native Nurse, whose breeding was prompted somewhat by desperation. Native Nurse had proved difficult to get in foal. Stanley Greene, operator of the Virginia Stallion Station, close to Clark’s farm, told Clark:

‘Send her to Spanish Riddle; he’ll get her in foal.’ ”

In a tip to a more stellar name, champion Davona Dale was on the cover of that week’s issue of The Blood-Horse (Aug. 16) winning the Ballerina Stakes in what would be the 1979 filly Triple Crown winner’s last victory.

A deserving cover gal, Silverbulletday, was “Bulletproof” in the Aug. 28, 1999, issue of The Blood-Horse. The two-time champion ran out a nine-length win in the Alabama with a final quarter of :23.04 under Jerry Bailey for trainer Bob Baffert and owner Mike Pegram.

The win, her 13th in 15 starts to that point, took some of the sting out of the team’s Real Quiet’s falling to injury earlier in the week.

“She’s a gift from heaven,” Pegram said in The Blood-Horse. “She’s a once-in-a-lifetime horse. That’s not taking anything away from Real Quiet, but this horse has always been so super special.”

Silverbulletday (Silver Deputy—Rokeby Rose, by Tom Rolfe) would find her spot in the Hall of Fame in 2009.

Lady Joanne’s win in the race in 2007 for breeder/owner Bentley Smith and Hall of Fame trainer Carl Nafzger came with a bang-bang finish. The daughter of Orientate—Oatsee, by Unbridled, edged Lear’s Princess by a neck but not without incident as the winner drifted out, giving the stewards a reason to take another look. They made no change.

“She’s a little finicky,” jockey Calvin Borel told The Blood-Horse. “If I get after her too much, she’ll get mad. It’s like she’s telling me she’s already doing everything she can. But she doesn’t even run like a filly; she runs like a horse. She’s aggressive, and she’s got a lot of experience now. She’s moving forward.”

Oatsee, who also produced classic winner Shackleford, was named the Kentucky Broodmare of the Year in 2011. Sold as part of Bentley Smith’s Revocable Trust in 2008, Lady Joanne brought $1.25 million from Adena Springs at the Keeneland November sale. Dr. Masatake Iida purchased her the following year from Adena Springs for $1.6 million at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky November sale.

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