Today is the top three year old race for the fillies; the Alabama Stakes. A race rich in tradition, today is the 131st running going a mile and a quarter over the Saratoga oval. I've gone to quite a few stakes races at Saratoga , but this was the first grade I that I attended in 1987. That year, a horse named; Up the Apalachee won the race and I believe one of the owners lived here locally in the Capital District area. I got my first taste of "big" Saratoga crowds that day! Three year's later in 1990, we saw a tour de force by one of the most talented three year old fillies ever in Go For Wand. The next few years, we saw a "who's who" of great fillies captured this historic race.
Trainer Shug McGaughey, who was pretty good with three year old fillies got Versailles Treaty and Heavenly Prize to win this race three years apart. In between those two horses, legendary trainer; "The Chief" H. Allen Jerkens won this race with November Snow and Sky Beauty. The latter, was quite an sensation in New York winning races. You could say she was the female version of Easy Goer at NYRA tracks. There have been major "upsets" in this race also. Pretty Discreet; the mother of both Discreet Cat and Discreetly Mine, won this stake in 1995 at odds of 42-1. But, the Alabama I recalled the best was just one year after I started writing for the Recorder. It was an "off" track that day and Silverbulletday crushed her rivals as I watched high a top the Saratoga spires on the roof. That was one of my defining moments at Saratoga through the years.
The list since then has gone on and on, so the Alabama Stakes is a highly regarded to the colts version of this race; the Travers. Today is no exception! Six runners are entered today and coming from different directions throughout the country. Royal Delta (#1) recently ran third in the Coaching Club American Oaks here at Saratoga going a mile & an eighth. She really was no factor in that race and seems to be a enigma of sorts. Pinch Pie (#2) will be the "rank" outsider in this race. All three victories for her have been on the grass, but her trainer; Anthony Dutrow is batting 44% at Saratoga and 34 % overall for the year. Plum Pretty (#3) should be the pace setter again today. She couldn't hold off the horse just outside of her (It's Tricky) last time out in the CCA Oaks and today goes an extra eighth of a mile. Will she control the pace slower today and enhance her chances? It's Tricky (#4) has come into her own in the last two starts and could be considered the modern day version of Sky Beauty, because of her liking of the NYRA tracks. St. John's River (#5) is a intriguing horse of sorts. She has the "mile and a quarter" distance written all over her. She got up in the last jump her most recent start in the Delaware Oaks at a mile and sixteenth. The field is rounded out by Canada 's, Queen's Plate winner; Inglorious (#6). While she defeated the "boys" last time out, all her victories have been on a synthetic surface. Her other two races were at the Fairgrounds and weren't that bad.
While we have a short field, it is full of many different facets. Proven horses over the course and new shooters trying to gain that "black" type - grade I victory. We may or may not get our next, Sky Beauty or Pretty Discreet. But, the Alabama Stakes is the rich tradition that doesn't take a back seat to the Travers Stakes.
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