Fashion Alert clearly best in Schuylerville

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - The two-horse race that Friday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Schuylerville Stakes looked to be on paper played out that way on the racetrack, with heavily favored Fashion Alert dueling with then edging away from Take Charge Brandi in the opening-day feature at Saratoga.

Fashion Alert, ridden by John Velazquez for trainer Todd Pletcher, won by 1 1/2 lengths over Take Charge Brandi, who finished 7 3/4 lengths clear of Tulira’s Star in third. Evrybdymstgetstonz and Mast Cove completed the order of finish.

Fashion Alert, a daughter of Old Fashioned, is now 2 for 2, with both wins coming in stakes. She won the Astoria as a first-time starter last month at Belmont. It was the fifth victory in the Schuylerville for Pletcher, one fewer than the number of his former boss, D. Wayne Lukas, who trains Take Charge Brandi.

Fashion Alert earned her owners, George Bolton and Barry Hall, a $100,000 bonus for winning a graded stakes at a New York Racing Association track after winning her maiden at Belmont Park.

Fashion Alert overcame a bad start, veering in and bumping soundly with Evrybdymstgetstonz. Velazquez took a firm hold of Fashion Alert and quickly got her going, getting within a head of the clean-starting Take Charge Brandi.

“The only good thing about the start for us was it allowed us to get outside of Wayne’s filly and kind of be the stalker instead of the stalkee,” Pletcher said.

Fashion Alert dueled outside of Take Charge Brandi through a quarter in 22.41 seconds, a half in 45.21 and five-eighths in 57.86 before getting away late. The final eighth was run in a pokey 13.92 seconds for a final time of 1:11.78. Fashion Alert returned $2.40 as the favorite.

“Wish we had a better break and got a better position the first part, but she kind of recuperated right away and got a good position going to the half-mile pole,” Velazquez said. “From then on I wanted to give her a little breather and see how she did. Down the lane she started to lean in on the horse to the inside and finally she started getting way from her the last sixteenth of a mile.”

Corey Lanerie, the rider of Take Charge Brandi, said Fashion Alert never touched his filly.

“I always had room; his horse was laying in a little bit,” Lanerie said. “At the quarter pole I thought I had it. I tapped her on the shoulder and she acted like she was going to run away from her. He had a little more horse also. My horse ran big and I think she’ll move forward off this race a lot.”