Alabama Stakes

Keeneland Sales, which will continue to be presenting sponsor of the GI Alabama Stakes at Saratoga Race Course this summer, will also be the presenting sponsor of this year's GI Del Mar Oaks. Both races for 3-year-old fillies will be held Aug. 17. "Keeneland is thrilled to once again collaborate with the New York Racing Association and the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club in sponsoring prestigious summer stakes," Keeneland Vice President of Sales Tony Lacy said. "Endorsements such as these allow us to celebrate Keeneland sales graduates from coast to coast...

Miss Justify (Justify) rallied smartly along the fence in the stretch to capture Friday's $135,000 Wilton Stakes at Saratoga. Third in the Smart Halo Stakes while making her final start for trainer Susan Cooney at Laurel last November, the bay made two previous attempts for Todd Pletcher this term, including a front-running, last-out win going a one-turn mile in an optional claimer at Churchill Downs June 1. Backed at odds of 5-2 here, the rail-drawn Miss Justify chased from fourth through an opening quarter in :23.71. She crept up closer...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY -- It's a tossup as to what is the biggest sporting event this weekend for trainer Jeremiah Englehart. The choices are these: the $175,000 GIII Sanford Stakes at Saratoga Race Course on Saturday or the Vermont Lacrosse Classic two and a half hours away in the town of Essex. Come again? Englehart will do double duty because three of his five kids are in the lacrosse travel tournament. He wont miss that. And he can't be absent from the Spa because he has to to saddle Mo...

Richard and Connie Snyder moved their commercial breeding operation from New Mexico to Kentucky nine years ago with the aim of competing at the highest levels of the game. The Snyders' Cove Springs Farm seems to have that goal well in its grasp after a memorable August which saw the operation represented by its first Grade I winner when Randomized (Nyquist) captured the GI Alabama S. and by a high-water mark in the sales ring when a colt by Not This Time brought $725,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale. Cove...

When Joel Rosario won his first GI Alabama S. back in 2010, he had to come from the tail of the field on Blind Luck (Pollard's Vision) in a race run at a crawl and culminating in a pulsating, driving finish with an upstart filly named Havre de Grace (Saint Liam). Leaving little to chance in pursuit of a second victory in the meet's premier race for the sophomore filly set, the Dominican native kicked Klaravich Stables' Randomized (Nyquist) straight into the lead from a wide alley Saturday afternoon and...

Repole Stable, Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners and Michael House's Nest (Curlin) left little doubt who the best 3-year-old filly in the country is with a second straight tour-de-force victory over GI Kentucky Oaks heroine Secret Oath (Arrogate) in Saturday's GI Alabama S. at Saratoga. The overwhelming 1-5 favorite wasn't off to the smoothest of beginnings, bobbling slightly and bumping with longshot Nostalgic (Medaglia d'Oro) at the start. It didn't seem to matter one bit once the 1 1/4-mile journey was officially underway with Nest finding a perfect spot in a stalking...

By this stage, they've probably had enough of being asked about that $1 mare. But the remarkable thing is that the first Thoroughbred ever acquired by Robert and Stacy Mitchell still cost more (cover fees aside) than all the others that have stocked Briland Farm, on and off the racetrack, since 2001. That was the year, having begun an inadvertent breeding career with a mare discarded by a friend of a friend, they decided to see what they could do with one that cost as much as $36,000. Her name...

GI Belmont S. winner Mo Donegal (Uncle Mo) and GI Kentucky Derby Rich Strike (Keen Ice), sixth in Saturday's Belmont, will now be pointed towards the Aug. 27 GI Runhappy Travers S., connections confirmed Sunday morning. "I haven't really talked to the ownership group about it too much, but both of our Travers winners went through the Jim Dandy," Mo Donegal's trainer Todd Pletcher said Sunday. "So to me, if he has a prep between now and the Travers, that would make the most sense." The GII Jim Dandy will...

Maracuja (Honor Code) put an end to 'TDN Rising Star' Malathaat's (Curlin) unbeaten record when they last met in Saratoga's GI CCA Oaks July 24. Now that GI Kentucky Oaks winner will try to turn the tables on that foe and return to winning ways as the even-money morning-line favorite in Saturday's prestigious GI Alabama S. going an additional furlong at the Spa. A perfect three-for-three as a juvenile, capped by a victory in the GII Demoiselle S., Malathaat kicked off her sophomore campaign with a head success in Keeneland's...