Lady Eli Bids Farewell to Saratoga in Ballston Spa
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Photo: Skip Dickstein
Lady Eli (outside) works in tandem with Antonoe at the Oklahoma training track
On August 25, 2014, the Saratoga Race Course crowd had no idea the magnitude of what they had witnessed.
A dark bay daughter of Divine Park emerged from a troubled trip during the day's fifth race to score a nose victory in her debut. It was an impressive enough outing for a baby going 1 1/16 miles on the turf first time out, but the guts Lady Eli showed that afternoon would prove a mere snippet of what was to come.
In the 11 starts that followed, she recorded five grade 1 wins including a Breeders' Cup triumph. She spent 13 months battling laminitis due to a freak accident but, true to her ornery ways, she told that disease just where it could go and returned to resume her superior on-track ways.
Set to be offered as a broodmare prospect at this year's Keeneland November breeding stock sale, Lady Eli will make one more racing appearance at the oval where she first threw down the gauntlet. Nearly three years to the day after her debut, Sheep Pond Partners' 5-year-old mare will try and end her time at the Spa in the same fashion it began when she breaks from the inside post in a field of six for the $400,000 Woodford Reserve Ballston Spa Stakes (G2T) Aug. 26.
The 29th running of the 1 1/16-mile Ballston Spa is one of seven stakes, six of them grade 1 races, on a blockbuster 13-race program highlighted by the $1.25 million Travers Stakes presented by NYRA Bets (G1).
Lady Eli was second by less than a length to 27-1 long shot Strike Charmer in last year's Ballston Spa, her first race back after her bout with laminitis. While that particular race did not yield a fairytale result, everything Lady Eli has done in the aftermath has been nothing short of amazing.
She won three grade 1 races since then, including the Diana Stakes (G1T) July 22 at Saratoga, bringing her career total to nine wins from 12 starts. The victory improved her career bankroll to $2,719,800. Though trainer Chad Brown initially planned for the Flower Bowl Stakes (G1T) Oct. 8 at Belmont Park to be her next start, he called an audible and entered her in the Ballston Spa after some impressive works.
"The more I thought about it, and the more I observed her works since the Diana, she's looked super," Brown said. "I'm staring at that lengthy layoff from the Diana going to the (Flower Bowl), going a mile and a quarter, and factoring in that it's in the fall in New York. If it came up heavy ground or something, I'd really put myself in a box and it's kind of a difficult position to be in with her final prep for the Breeders' Cup. The more I thought about it—the clear forecast here on Saturday gives me the option to not run her again before the Breeders' Cup if the conditions weren't right.
"She came out of her last work great and she's giving us a lot of the body language she gives us when she's ready to run," he added. "On top of all that, it'll be great to run her at Saratoga one more time."
Lady Eli captured the 2014 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1T) in her third career start and was beaten a nose in last year's Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf (G1T)—the race that figures to be her career swansong at Del Mar this November.
Where Lady Eli goes, quality usually follows, and her opponents in the Ballston Spa are no exception.
Among the three grade 1 winners she will face Saturday is her stablemate Antonoe, who began her career in France before joining Brown in the spring. The daughter of First Defence won her first two North American starts, capped by the one-mile Longines Just a Game Stakes (G1T) at Belmont June 10. She was steadied in traffic late and finished third behind Lady Eli most recently in the Diana.
"With Antonoe, I think the cutback in distance from the Diana will benefit her," Brown said. "She won going a mile in the Just a Game, so I think a mile and a sixteenth should be fine for her."
Like Lady Eli, Phillips Racing Partnerships' Time and Motion owns a win over the local course, with a win in the grade 2 Lake Placid Stakes in August of 2016 for trainer Jimmy Toner.
The 4-year-old daughter of Tapit earned her top-level triumph when she prevailed in the 2016 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup Stakes Presented by Lane's End (G1T) in October, but hasn't found the winner's circle in four starts since. She enters the race off a third-place effort in the Modesty Handicap (G3T) July 8, contested at Arlington International Racecourse.
"It was such a tough campaign last year for 3-year-old fillies and she ran hard all year," Toner said. "We tried to freshen her up and bring her back and it just takes time for them to get back to that level to where they were before. She's not running bad, but I still think there's more there."
Godolphin Racing's Dickinson looks to rebound from back-to-back grade 1 losses as she ran third in the Just a Game and was fifth in the Diana. The 5-year-old Medaglia d'Oro mare returns to the 1 1/16-mile distance of her most recent victory, a head triumph over Lady Eli in the Coolmore Jenny Wiley Stakes (G1T) April 15 at Keeneland.
"Probably between a mile and a mile and an eighth is her best distance, so we're right there at a mile and a sixteenth," trainer Kiaran McLaughlin said. "She came out of the last race in good shape. Obviously we were disappointed with her performance, but she just didn't have a really strong day. She had a bad day but she only got beat four lengths. We just hope she rebounds but she's doing great."
Saratoga Race Course, Saturday, August 26, 2017, Race 12Entries: Woodford Reserve Ballston Spa S. (G2T)
PP
Horse
Jockey
Wgt
Trainer
M/L
1
1Lady Eli (KY)
Irad Ortiz, Jr.
123
Chad C. Brown
4/5
2
2Roca Rojo (IRE)
Joel Rosario
121
Chad C. Brown
9/2
3
3Time and Motion (KY)
John R. Velazquez
121
James J. Toner
10/1
4
4On Leave (KY)
Jose L. Ortiz
121
Claude R. McGaughey III
12/1
5
5Antonoe (KY)
Javier Castellano
123
Chad C. Brown
3/1
6
6Dickinson (KY)
Paco Lopez
123
Kiaran P. McLaughlin
6/1
