A Year After Maple Leaf Mel Broke Down, Melanie Giddings Still Trying To Deal With Her Emotions

The anniversary is right around the corner, a gruesome tragedy that nobody who was at Saratoga that day will ever forget. It was among the darkest days in the long history of racing upstate. But nobody had it worse than trainer Melanie Giddings, who, in a fraction of second, saw Maple Leaf Mel (Cross Traffic) go from the sure winner of the GI Test Stakes to a horse who broke down inches before the wire and could not be saved.

Her business is doing fine. She has 42 horses and hopes to win a handful of races at Saratoga. But that won't be nearly enough to erase when happened on Aug. 5 of last year.

“I don't think you'll ever get over something like that,” Giddings said. “She was a pretty special filly, but even if she were just a $5,000 claimer it would also have been a tragic thing. We are in this sport because we love the horse and we don't want to see any of them get hurt.”

Owned by retired NFL Hall of Fame coach Bill Parcells, Maple Leaf Mel served notice well before the Test that she was one of the fastest 3-year-old fillies in training. She was 5-for-5 coming into the race with wins in the GIII Victory Ride Stakes and the GIII Miss Preakness Stakes.

For all but the last four or five steps, it looked like the Test was going to be a coronation. She had the race won until suffering a catastrophic injury to her right front leg.

“It was pretty much a feeling of shock,” said the 40-year-old trainer. “I took a filly into a race that I thought was going to win. It went from a real high, to, literally, rock bottom and I couldn't believe that it actually happened.”

She said that Parcells, who named the filly after her, was also deeply disappointed and upset.

“For Bill Parcells, it was obviously hard for him,” Giddings said. “He spent a lot of time and money in this business looking for a special horse. We were really enjoying having her. It would have been his first Grade I win and he was looking to have a real big summer here in Saratoga and the rest of the year and then looking forward to Breeders' Cup.”

With the breakdown, the race was officially won by the Brendan Walsh-trained Pretty Mischievous (Into Mischief). In a series of classy and magnanimous gestures, Walsh would not allow a winner's circle picture taken of his horse and the following day he gifted the blanket of flowers to Giddings.

“It was really nice of him to do that,” she said. “Brendan is a good-hearted person himself. I've known him for a while, back when he was working with Eddie Kenneally. He takes great care of his horses and I know it was hard for him to see that as well. None of us ever want to see that. At end of the day we are competitors, but we are all doing it for the same reason and when something like that happens it affects everybody.”

The morning after last year's Test Stakes, Giddings shares a muffin with her pony Gordo and her dog Reece | Sarah Andrew photo

Giddings wouldn't talk about the race in the days immediately following it, but has grown comfortable telling her story. She said one of the harder days over the last year was when she attended the awards ceremony for New York-breds.

“It was hard when I had to go to the New York-bred ceremony and they honored her and she won all sorts of awards,” Giddings said. “But it just shows you how good she really was.”

Giddings has a lot to look forward to at this year's Saratoga meet. She finished second with Leon Blue (Mo Town) in a July 24 maiden race and had a runner-up with first-time starter Elemiah (Rowayton). She said she has other horses she is high on that will run before the meet is over.

But another Maple Leaf Mel? She can't see that happening.

“She was just pretty special all around,” she said. “You knew she was special from the start and those horses are very rare. She's a once-in-a-lifetime horse, to be honest with you.”