Saturday (August 21) is Alabama Stakes day at Saratoga, some of best fillies of the classic generation lining up for the third leg of the New York Triple Tiara. Here Patrick Lawrence Gilligan remembers the Alabama of three years ago, when he was assistant to Kentucky trainer Kenny McPeek and McPeek had a live contender for the race.
This is an excerpt from Gilligan’s new book, ‘One Summer in Saratoga’, which will be published on September 1. This is from a chapter titled ‘Alabama Slamma’.
It rained that morning. The morning of August 18, 2018. The morning of the Alabama Stakes. The final piece of the jigsaw fell into place, we thought. But then the rain stopped.
It was late morning. Her race wasn’t due to go off until 5.40 that afternoon. In the mean time, the track would be drying out, hour by relentless hour. How it would be come race time was anyone’s guess. There was $600,000 in purse money, and another million dollars or so in bloodstock value depending on the moisture level in the track that afternoon.
We were there, Kenny, Danny, me. All suited up, pacing around, waiting at the barn.
Jannette, her groom, got her ready. Kenny started looking for things for us to do, little tasks, distractions, for himself and for us. He often puts the hind rundown bandages on himself for the Grade 1s. Once that was done, I put on the bridle, he double checked it, and we were good to go. Kenny headed off to the track. The sun was shining, it had remained dry all afternoon.
We pulled the filly out, I checked her over once again, and off she headed for the mile walk to the racecourse.
Danny and I jumped in the golf buggy and shadowed her over. She was good. She was a professional. She knew what was coming. It was exciting, being part of it.
It was back in late March I first saw her. She was hairy and dry-coated then. Now she was sleek, and proud. She was big and strong and honest. I knew she would give everything she had today, she was ready. Danny was big on her. Today couldn’t come around quick enough for him.
The horses circled in the holding barn. Waiting to be called across to the paddock. Danny and I exchanged nothings, our minds focused on the race.
They were called out in racecard order to walk to the racetrack. Danny was dressed sharper than a big-time rapper. He led the way. I walked by the horse’s shoulder. She felt imposing. She felt focused.
We walked through, past the throng, cutting through the picnickers and bettors. The railed walkway was lined with spectators, within touching distance each side. Fans who wanted to see some of the most gifted Thoroughbred fillies of their generation. The cream of the crop. All of us sheltered under the giant green-leaved elm trees, sunlight fingering its way through here and there.
Kenny met us in the paddock. We talked more nothings. The valet brought out the saddle. She was good to tack. She was good about everything. We circled some more. The riders entered the paddock. Jose Ortiz greeted everyone. The Puerto Rican superstar, reigning champion jockey in North America.
A few words were exchanged. Kenny told him to leave her alone the first half of the race, and at the business end, if he saw a chance to save ground, to take it. “If it doesn’t work out, that’s on me,” he said.
Jose acknowledged him, and we went to meet the filly. He was legged up, and we began the final walk out onto the track. Hundreds of fans lined the way. Some of them shouted the jockeys. Cameras followed us. I asked Jose what the track was like. “It’s wet,” he said.
We let her off to the pony rider, and she stepped onto the track. She was big and golden, and the tension kept building.
Already detached
The bettors were queuing deep at the windows, trying to get their money on as the horses paraded. The sky was blue and bright, wisps of clouds, the green infield, the beige track, noise everywhere.
And then they loaded, and everything stopped. The crowd fell silent, for the first time you could hear every word the announcer said. We stood in the winner’s circle, right by the track, near the wire, me and Danny. And the gates sprung open, and for two minutes nothing else existed.
She broke on terms with her seven competitors, but as they ran past us towards the wire for the first time, she was already getting detached, outpaced seemingly, in last place, and she just kept dropping further back.
By the time they had travelled the first furlong and a half and were hitting the first turn, she was half a dozen lengths off the second last horse. The leader was in a different county already. We hadn’t expected this.
As they swung out of the turn into the backstretch, she was out of the picture, trailing hopelessly. But then the time flashed up, 22.52 seconds for the first quarter-mile, lightning fast for a mile-and-a-quarter race, too fast, even for horses of this calibre. And, as they rolled along the backstretch and hit the half mile in 46.79, I fancied she was closing fractionally.
Then, just as they started to enter the home turn, she started to roll, to pick up, and she walked past two stragglers, kicking them out of her way, and halfway around the turn she went between two more, and Jose remembered what Kenny said, and as he went through them he darted to the inside rail. He saved ground. The muddy dirt kicked into her face, but she ignored it. And then they ducked out again as they entered the stretch, and she emerged, covered in dirt, wearing her signs of battle, and Jose urged her, and she stretched, all power, and courage and honesty. Running with all her heart, for whatever reason, for us maybe, for her survival, as her ancestors had done, for millions of years. They had all run fast enough, to stay alive long enough to reproduce, so she could be here this day. The impossibility of existence.
She burst to the front. The opposition faded to nothing. There was only her, her head stretched, her powerful stride, her giant heart, reaching for the wire, the wire she didn’t even know was there. She won easily, by 6½ lengths.
New queen
Danny was ecstatic, we all were. We hugged each other, there in the winner’s enclosure, and laughed along with Danny as we waited for her to come back to us. We waited for the newly crowned queen, the blue blood, the granddaughter of Winning Colors, so she would accept her blanket of flowers, and receive the worship of the crowd, of her crowd now, for today.
Kenny appeared. He looked relieved, a bit shocked, hiding the adrenaline rush, being professional – he will enjoy it later though, a plan of his, months in the making. Waiting for this one day. Bam!
She came back, Jose all smiles. She was fine, blowing hard of course, but her head was up, she wasn’t exhausted, wasn’t spent. Still proud. We were all proud now. She came into the winner’s circle, and we had our pictures taken. And she wrote herself into the record books that day, Eskimo Kisses.