Personal Ensign Stakes preview: time for Rachel Alexandra to shine
The real deal about to prove the doubters wrong or a fading star about to be found out?
Even suggesting that Rachel Alexandra may no longer be one of the queens of American racing will be considered a sacrilege by her legion of followers. But now she has the chance to prove that when she tackles four rivals, and 10 furlongs for the first time, in the Grade One Personal Ensign Stakes at Saratoga.
Despite those who cited the unbeaten Zenyatta for the Horse of the Year award, Rachel Alexandra took the vote for last season. But the award appeared to hang around her neck like a millstone for the first two runs of her season this year. She started by finishing second to Zenyatta’s stable companion, Zardana, in the New Orleans Ladies Stakes at Fair Grounds in March, which was Rachel Alexandra’s first run since winning the Grade One Woodward Stakes against the colts at Saratoga the previous September.
Rachel Alexandra was then beaten a head by Unrivaled Belle in the Grade Two La Troienne Stakes at Churchill the following month, but since then there has been something like normal service. Indeed there was a hint that the filly had returned to her peak when she went back to Churchill to win the Grade Two Fleur de Lis Handicap in June by 10½ lengths but then her three-length win in the ungraded Lady’s Secret Stakes at Monmouth Park last month gave those doubters some more ammunition.
However, Rachel Alexandra's trainer, Steve Asmussen, believes that his filly is primed and ready to fire the bullets. As he told the Thoroughbred Times: “The filly is a year older, and she’s carrying a little more weight, a little heavier than she was then,” he said. “There are no comparisons to the situation when she moved into the barn last year. It’s impossible to duplicate, moving into the barn four days off of a big race and ten days before a classic. You can’t recreate that sort of tension or pressure on her, so it’s obviously a lot more relaxed this year.”
Asmussen may not be too relaxed if Todd Pletcher has any say in it. He runs Life At Ten, who has won her last six consecutive starts. The five-year-old mare began her season in the Rare Treat Stakes at Aqueduct in February and the Grade Three Sixty Sails Handicap Hawthorne in April. Since then she has beaten Unrivaled Belle by two-and-three-quarter lengths in the Grade One Ogden Phipps Handicap at Belmont Park in June and then had Miss Singhsix, who reopposes here, three lengths behind in the Grade Two Delaware Handicap at Delaware Park last month.
“The Personal Ensign is a natural progression as it made sense to keep her at a mile-and-a-quarter,” Pletcher said. “It just so happens that Rachel Alexandra is going to this race, but we are sticking with our plan.
“She has gotten better and better as she has gotten older. It was something we thought would happen, although it took longer than we had hoped.”
Persistently, a Saratoga allowance winner, and Classofsixtythree, third in the Grade One Ruffian Invitational Handicap at Saratoga earlier this month, complete the field but this race looks likely to develop into a duel between Rachel Alexandra and Life At Ten.
Those who deal in facts and figures will note that Life At Ten has run one triple-digit Beyer Speed Figure in her career to date. Rachel Alexandra has run a dozen of those in a row.
The doubters may wish to take note as well.
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