Saratoga Highlights--2012 (Part 5, Some Stunners)

Stunning wins.

Sometimes it's a long shot--a very long shot.
Sometimes it's a real bad start, maybe even a fall out of the gate.
Sometimes it's running a second time in the same week, with only 2 days rest for a Grade 1.
Sometimes it's beating a seemingly unbeatable champion.
Sometimes it's a come-from-way-behind in the stretch.

We had all of those at Saratoga 2012. Some of them we had a few times. Among them, here are my (always humble) picks for Highlights. 5 of them.
[With lots--as in real lots--of thanks to Bob Mayberger and Adam Coglianese for such wonderful shots. GREAT stuff!]

Lady Utopia at 70 - 1
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Lady Utopia
Clear Win at 70-1
by Adam Coglianese

Come on. Can't help but love this one.
Sunday, July 29th. The 5th race, a 6 furlong maiden claiming with a 20K price tag on each filly and mare.
One of the fillies had finished 7th and 6th in her first 2 tries, losing by a total of 36+ lengths.
But local trainer Gabriel Goodwin and his father-in-law, the owner, Guy LaMotta, still thought she was special.
Well, on that Sunday, going off at by far the longest odds in the field of 9, Lady Utopia vindicated their trust.

M'lady
w/ Proud Connections
by Adam Coglianese

Stalking the dueling leaders, M'lady went wide and passed them both under Abel Lezcano to win convincingly by 2 growing lengths.
In the hearts and minds of some who love long shots, as well as her trainer and owner, this beautiful 3 year old girl just might have been the Belle of the Meet.

Saratoga Highlights--2012 (Part 4, Some Great Faves)

It's tough enough to pick highlights. Tougher to rank the first few. It's well nigh impossible to assign anything but an arbitrary number to the several that follow thereafter.

So I'm not going to try. At least not this year.

Instead, here are several of the Saratoga Highlights-2012 that I'll simply label as special or personal or just plain great favorites.

Wise Dan in the Fourstardave
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Wise Dan Pulls Away
in Fourstardave
by Bob Mayberger

The then-5 year old gelding did it on the turf this time, with a dominating 5 length win. Trained by Charles Lopresti and ridden by Johnny Velasquez, Dan has won big on synthetic, on dirt, and on the turf. In 2012, he won 5 out of 6, set record times at Keeneland and Santa Anita--including his victory in the Breeders' Cup mile--and proved in the Fourstardave that Saratoga was no graveyard for this champion.

Dan a Clear Winner
in the Dave
by Bob Mayberger

And speaking of  champions, he joined the company of Secretariat and a very few others to win 3 championship awards in a single year. Earlier this month, he won the Eclipse Awards for Horse of the Year, Older Male, and Male Turf Horse. It was great to see him at the Spa.

Saratoga Highlights--2012 (Part 3)

Highlights 3 & 4, The Alabama & The Whitney

[Shanghai Bobby--the 2012 juvenile champion, whose victory in the Hopeful Stakes placed him atop these Saratoga Highlights in the last post--suffered his 1st loss in Saturday's Holy Bull. He was a very strong performing 2nd to Itsmyluckyday, who won in record breaking time for Florida's Gulfstream Park.
Itsmyluckyday has not yet raced at Saratoga. He does, however, have close family ties. Lawyer Ron, his Dad (sire in horsetalk), scored huge victories at the 2007 Saratoga meet.

Lawyer Ron, 2007 Woodward
by Bob Mayberger

In the Whitney, Ron set the track record time for all 1 and 1/8th mile races. In the Woodward (which, as I've written before, is in my view Saratoga's very best race), Ron won--no, destroyed the rest of the field--by an expanding 8 length lead, in one of the most thrilling performances I've ever witnessed.
Hopefully, we'll see Lawyer Ron's record-breaking son, Itsmyluckyday, at the Spa this coming summer.
Now, back to Saratoga 2012.]

#3 Questing in the Alabama
The very first weekend of the meet, Questing moved into competition for top 3 year old fillie.  She scored a 4 length victory in the 1 and 1/8th mile Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks. (It was the 2nd straight year for trainer Kiaran McLaughlin. It was the first Grade 1 for 19 year old jockey, Irad Ortiz Jr.)
(click to enlarge any photo)

Questing, the CCAO
by Bob Mayberger

Then one month later, she faced an even tougher test in the Alabama. One of the country's premiere races--whether for fillies or colts--it hosted a particularly strong collection of the country's very best fillies last summer. (E.g., Grace Hall, In Lingerie, Zo Impressive). But in a "spectacular, exhilarating performance" (as announcer Tom Durkin called it), Q demolished the rest of the field by 9 lengths.

Q Romps the Alabama
by Bob Mayberger

The wire-to-wire romp was the fastest since the great Go For Wand won the 1 and 1/4 mile race in 1990. Q's dominating performances in the Coaching Club and the Alabama earned her the Eclipse Award for 3 year old fillies earlier this month.

Saratoga Highlights--2012 (Part 2: Highlight[s] #1)

How to pick the highlights? To pick the best of so many thrilling, glorious, rousing moments?
Let alone to pick the Number 1 of them all?

Well, I can't whittle it down to a Top 10. I usually can't. So it will be a Top 15 or 16.
And it will be two Number 1's. Even that was tough.
I actually think there's another that's at least as much a highlight. But I'll put that one at #3 and leave it for the next post.

For now, starting at the very top, here's my 2 (very humbly submitted, but indisputably exhilarating) #1 highlights of the Saratoga 2012 meet.

#1 Shanghai Bobby in the Hopeful
and
#1 The Dead Heat in the Travers between Alpha and Golden Ticket

When he won the Hopeful Stakes on Labor Day, Shanghai Bobby showed that he was by far the best of the juveniles to race at Saratoga in 2012. Probably the best 2 year old to race at any track in the country.
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Shanghai Bobby
by Bob Mayberger

He later proved that he was in fact the very best anywhere when he went on to win the Champagne at Belmont, and then capped his 5 for 5 freshman year with a victory in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita in November.

As expected, Bobby won the Eclipse Award as Champion 2 Year Old last weekend, doing so by a near-unanimous vote of 253 to 1!

Shanghai Bobby
by Bob Mayberger

In the Hopeful at Saratoga, this son of Harlan's Holiday, trained by Todd Pletcher and ridden by Rosie Napravnick, moved to the lead in the stretch. He looked around a bit as he's known to do, and then took off for a nearly 4 length win. Fortify, Overanalyze, and Bern Identity were among the promising 2 year olds he defeated.

Shanghai Bobby is the early favorite for the Kentucky Derby. Way too early for any confidence. But it demonstrates just how impressive was his juvenile year on the track.

Saratoga Highlights--Summer 2012 (Part 1)

And guess who sighs,

his lullabies,

through nights that never end.

--Sinatra, SUMMER WIND

Yes. And it's 6 more months of lullabies till Saratoga reopens for the 2013 meet.

(click to enlarge any photo)

Saratoga Closing Day, 2012
by Bob Mayberger

Saratoga Every Day, 2012
by Bob Mayberger

Well, it's now midway between opening day of last year's meet and this year's. It's also Eclipse Awards season--just presented this past weekend. And most of the winning athletes punched their tickets at Saratoga.

So, for the next few posts, it will be a nostalgic journey through the 2012 summer at Saratoga.

We'll look at the highlights. OK, my humble picks as highlights. You may disagree. Readers who know lots more than I do about thoroughbred racing may have included others and excluded some on my list. So be it.

But I'm confident that everything I select is A highlight of sorts, and will help to recall another extraordinarily thrilling season at Saratoga Racecourse. Or for those who didn't get the chance to visit, or don't even know what the fuss is all about, some demonstration of why so many of us have such an emotional attachment to Saratoga.

Just like we've had for Mantle, Joe D, Yogi, The Duke (Snyder), Willis Reed, and others in sports and elsewhere--uh, as in Sinatra and Billie and.... OK, enough of that.

But, what we all can certainly agree upon is the magnificent photography included in these Saratoga Highlights. Virtually all the shots to be included are by my bud, a great guy, Eclipse Award winning photographer--day job being attorney and chief clerk of a state appeals court-- Robert Mayberger.

Yes, his shots have adorned Saratoga Highlights before. So, unless otherwise indicated, all the stunning photography is Bob's. As is the following--our starting gate for Saratoga Highlights--Summer 2012.

Saratoga Highlights--Summer 2012
And We're Off !
by Bob Mayberger

This series, on the best of the best that is Saratoga, proceeds in earnest with the #1 highlight--actually, highlights--in the immediately following post.

SARATOGA 2012...

***Beginning Wednesday, January 23, 2013***
and continuing for several posts thereafter
(click here to begin)
SARATOGA HIGHLIGHTS

2012 MEET

coming this year as a 

Christmas/Holiday Season treat

(All these shots are from the NYRA website.

The Saratoga Highlights post[s] will feature photos by 2011 Media Eclipse Award Winner, Bob Mayberger, whose shots have adorned previous years' highlights.)