Showdown at Alabama Stakes in Saratoga: Blind Luck or Devil May Care?
So what if fans weren’t treated to the Zenyatta vs. Rachel Alexandra duel. There is still a lot more excitement to be had. On Sunday, horse racing fans would get a good taste of everything else that’s out there when the $500,000 Grade I Alabama Stakes gets underway at Saratoga.
As is the usual, the field is expected to be packed with stars but some just automatically hog the spotlight and it’s no different at Alabama. The talk of the town is either ‘Blind Luck’ or ‘Devil May Care.’ Between the two Grade I winners, other competitors are left out and understandably so.
The National Thoroughbred Racing Association ranks Blind Luck and Devil May Care at the 7th and 8th place respectively. The two have a combined seven Grade 1 wins and are the top two favourites for Sunday. Devil May Care has a slender lead with odds of 7-5 compared to Blind Luck’s 8-5. The slight advantage means nothing on the track though. The two are the leading 3 year-olds in the sport at present and the race would go a long way to determine once and for all about who's the better filly.
The numbers fall towards Blind Luck. She has more starts and victories than Devil May Care but the Devil doesn’t care. The numbers mean little on the track and that is where Devil May Care has outperformed off late. That is why Devil May Care is leading the odds table too. Punters see the kind of performances she has delivered in the recent past and it is believed that only now is she truly coming into her own. Other than the dismal Kentucky Derby, Jockey Velazquez and Devil May Care are coming off a string of wins including Grade I races at Belmont and Saratoga.
Blind Luck has her own strengths. She leads Devil May Care statically and is a true fighter. Her trainer Jerry Hollendorfer associates her to boxing legend Joe Frazier for her tenacity and fighting spirit. It’s one of her unmistakable qualities and her opponents trainer can’t deny it either. “Blind Luck is very relentless,” Todd Pletcher said. He further added that the general opinion was that Blind Luck would be unable to win. However, she never stopped trying and somehow is still expected to give a tough fight.
The respect is Mutual and Hollendorfer made no effort to hide it. He said that Devil May Care is the only filly to have tried the Kentucky Derby lengths. Speaking of the terrible run the filly had at the derby, Hollendorfer said that the track conditions were poor that day and all runners had a tough time. He said that excluding that day’s results bumps Devil May Care statistics to 5 wins in 7 starts.
Hollendorfer’s filly would be running the 10 furlong distance for the first time on Sunday with Joel Rosario aboard. He said that no horse running the race had won over 10 furlongs so all have something to prove. The real test would be how the fillies fare on the added distance. Hollendorfer believes that Blind Luck is ready for it.
That confidence in his filly’s abilities should not be mistaken as arrogance. “I don’t see this as a two-horse race,” Hollendorfer said. He said that he understood that the race is being played up as a showdown between the two favourites, “but there are some very capable fillies in here.” He added that Todd Pletcher would be looking at the race in much the same way.
Todd has as lot of faith in Devil May Care as Jerry has in Blind Luck. Todd said that his filly has held on to her winning form since her win at Saratoga in July. The trainer said that he had a tremendous amount of respect for Hollendorfer’s entrant and that he was looking forward to the race. “You’re putting the two most accomplished fillies on the racetrack and that’s what everyone wants to see.”
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