Crist: Saratoga meet one long highlight reel

The Grade 1’s of Saratoga 2015 were won by 15 different horses, from Hard Not to Like’s Diana on July 25 to Ralis’s Hopeful last Monday. While no horse won two Grade 1’s, Liam’s Map came awfully close, losing the Whitney in the last stride to Honor Code and then trouncing an accomplished Woodward field on closing weekend.

Liam’s Map is trained by Todd Pletcher, the only multiple Grade 1-winning trainer at the meet. Pletcher had four such winners. In addition to Liam’s Map in the Woodward, he won the Coaching Club American Oaks with Curalina, the Vanderbilt with Rock Fall, and the Spinaway with Rachel’s Valentina.

(Speaking of Rachel’s Valentina, is there any doubt that Rachel Alexandra was the Broodmare of the Meeting? Her first two foals arrived at the meet as unraced maidens. Rachel’s Valentina won her debut Aug. 2 and the Spinaway a month later. Her older half-brother, Jess’s Dream, made one of the most incredible debuts you will ever see, rallying from 20 lengths off the pace to run by the field going 1 1/8 miles first time out.)

It took 11 different stallions to sire the meet’s 15 Grade 1 winners, as four of them had a pair of such winners: Bernardini (Cavorting in the Test and Rachel’s Valentina), Curlin (Curalina in the CCA Oaks and Keen Ice in the Travers), Super Saver (Embellish the Lace in the Alabama and Runhappy in the King’s Bishop) and Unbridled’s Song (Unbridled Forever in the Ballerina and Liam’s Map).

Two-thirds of the Grade 1 winners were ridden by just two jockeys, as Javier Castellano and John Velazquez each won five. Castellano’s five included the old Big Four, the four Saturday stakes from back in the day of the 24-day meeting: the Whitney, Alabama, Travers, and Hopeful.

Chad Brown did not win a Grade 1 but was a strong second in the trainer standings, winning 31 races to Pletcher’s 34. A key reason is that 13 of Saratoga’s Grade 1’s are on dirt, where Pletcher excels, with just two on the grass, Brown’s specialty. Twenty-two of Pletcher’s 34 winners were on dirt, while 22 of Brown’s 31 were on grass. The other top-five trainers had similarly lopsided leanings. Twelve of Bill Mott’s 16 winners were on grass, as were 13 of Christophe Clement’s 15. Conversely, Rudy Rodriguez won 12 on dirt and just three on grass.

There were 212 grass races and 201 dirt races this summer. The record number of grass races was a function of spectacularly dry weather. Only 10 grass races were rained onto the main track for the entire 40-day meeting, compared with 30 last year and more than 50 in other recent years. Ten off-the-turfers used to constitute a bad weekend, not a 40-day virtual drought.

The profusion of grass racing may have determined the riding title, as Irad Ortiz Jr. won 34 of his 57 on the grass, 10 more turf wins than anyone else, while running only third to Castellano and Velazquez in dirt wins.

The five leading trainers (Pletcher, Brown, Mott, Clement, and Rodriguez) combined to win 111 of the meet’s 413 races, which is 111 more than the 182 trainers who failed to win a race from a combined 679 starts. This is a tough place to win races. Just ask the 558 owners whose horses not only failed to win a race but whose runners also earned less than $10,000 at the meeting.

About the only thing the meeting failed to deliver were eye-popping 2-year-old males. The local contingent was so weak that the California shipper Ralis, not even considered one of California’s top five juveniles at the time, was flown in for the Hopeful and trounced the locals. There have to be some better New York-based juveniles nearing their debuts – which is just one of many good reasons to keep paying attention as the racing moves to Belmont Park for the next seven weeks.