Fully Subscribed reels in Scottish Lassie to take Shuvee

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. − With an eighth of a mile remaining in Friday’s Grade 2 Shuvee Stakes at sun-soaked Saratoga, favored Scottish Lassie had a three-length advantage over Fully Subscribed and looked poised to record her third career graded stakes win.

But a sixteenth of a mile later, Scottish Lassie, under Jose Ortiz, began to shorten stride and Fully Subscribed, with Flavien Prat aboard, was lengthening hers and at the wire, it was Fully Subscribed a half-length winner of her $250,000 Shuvee. It was 4 3/4 lengths back to Snowyte in third.

It was the third career graded stakes win for Fully Subscribed, who at 3, won the Grade 2 Mother Goose and Grade 3 Comely. Those victories came a lot easier than did the Shuvee as there were moments when Prat and Brown wondered if Fully Subscribed would catch the two-time Grade 1 winning Scottish Lassie.

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“Turning for home, it looks like she opened up on me, at that point I thought I was going to run second,” Prat said. “The last eighth of a mile, last sixteenth of a mile, she found another gear.”

Brown, watching from his box seats, thought Fully Subscribed was getting the ideal inside-outside trip, but still had his doubts about the outcome.

“I wasn’t positive she was going to get there, but I figured from the eighth pole home we got no excuses from here,” Brown said. “She saved all the ground and it looked like she was going to get out to where I wanted her in the center of the track in the lane.”

Brown said he wanted Fully Subscribed out in the center of the track “because that’s where she does her best running,” he said. “Especially if you save ground in the first turn, you can afford to go around horses in the last turn if you need to. He executed it exactly the way I drew it up.”

Fully Subscribed, a 4-year-old daughter of Tiz the Law owned by Seth Klarman’s Klaravich Stables, covered the 1 1/8 miles in 1:49.46 and returned $5.44 as the second choice.

Scottish Lassie, who won the Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks here as a 3-year-old, was making her second start off the layoff following an allowance win last month. She stalked the pace-setting Snowyte through six furlongs in 1:11.75 before taking control of the race, but she noticeably tired late, drifting out.

“He gave her a perfect ride I would look for no excuses,” Jorge Abreu, the trainer of Scottish Lassie, said. “I never thought [Snowyte] was going to take the lead like that but Jose sat perfect, right outside of her and he gave her a perfect ride. She just got a little tired. I’m still going to go to the Personal Ensign anyway.”

The Grade 1, $500,000 Personal Ensign, on Aug. 29, will also be Fully Subscribed’s next start.

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