As Songbird Starts Season, Porter Starts New Treatment

Owner Rick Porter will not be in attendance at Belmont Park June 10 when his Songbird makes her 4-year-old debut in the Ogden Phipps Stakes (G1) on the June 10 Belmont Stakes (G1) undercard.

Although Porter will be staying in a nice hotel in the Boston area, he is not sure of his host's television line-up, which means he might have to make a Paul Revere-type ride through the city in search of a bar that offers NBCSN or TVG.

Porter starts an experimental cancer treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital this week, seeking to reverse the growth of tumors that have plagued him the past two years. His acceptance into the outpatient program has been championed by Spendthrift Farm owner B. Wayne Hughes, who is connected to the hospital.

Porter reported the treatment, which involves the removal, transformation, and re-insertion of cells, has, in trials, led to a 60% complete remission rate and 20% partial remission rate in patients. 

Porter's spirits during this difficult period have been buoyed by his multiple champion Songbird, who won her first 11 races before tasting defeat in last year's Longines Breeders' Cup Distaff (G1), in which she ran gallantly, battling champion Beholder nose-and-nose to the wire, only to fall a nostril short. The owner of Beholder, by the way, is a true sportsman named B. Wayne Hughes.

Porter was well enough to witness Songbird win the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) at the end of 2015 at Keeneland, but missed her pair of jaw-dropping performances at Saratoga Race Course last summer when she triumphed in the Coaching Club American Oaks and Alabama Stakes (both G1) by daylight distances.

The Medaglia d'Oro   filly has kept Porter's mind busy and, for precious pockets of time, off his health problems. He decided to ship the California-based Songbird (from the barn of Jerry Hollendorfer) to New York after analyzing the tough field in the June 3 $400,000 Beholder Mile Stakes (G1) at Santa Anita Park and a careful comparison of purses, with the Phipps purse at $750,000 offering nearly double the Beholder pot. Not that that completely satisfied the feisty Porter.

"I called NYRA asking them to up the purse to $1 million," Porter said, sounding strong of voice and spirit, "but because it's Belmont Stakes day, they couldn't. But we did get her travel expenses paid for."

Porter also touted the nugget, unearthed by his assistant Victoria Keith, that Songbird will be in rare company if she wins the Phipps. Over the last 25 years, only one 3-year-old filly Eclipse Award winner returned to start her 4-year-old season with a winning effort in a grade 1 contest.

That would be the great Hall of Fame runner Serena's Song, who won the Santa Monica Stakes (G1) in her return. Champions who failed to do so include Ashado (fifth in the grade 1 Apple Blossom Handicap), Stellar Wind (second to Beholder in the grade 1 Vanity Mile Stakes), and Surfside (third in the Santa Monica).

Porter is no stranger to owning top runners. His Fox Hill Farm campaigned champion and Horse of the Year Havre de Grace, and headliners such as Round Pond, Joyful Victory, Jostle, Eight Belles, Rockport Harbor, Old Fashioned, Winslow Homer, Hard Spun, and Zonk. Songbird, though, might be the best of them all, and a victory in the Phipps would be an encouraging kickoff to the seven weeks Porter, a Delaware native, will spend in Beantown.

That would put his release date from the program roughly in sync with the opening of the Saratoga season. Not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but the Personal Ensign Stakes (G1) looms as a possible destination for Songbird and her owner, should all proceed as planned. Hopefully both the champion filly and the medical therapy prove to be elixirs for Porter as we swing into the second half of the season.