Malathaat will target Spinster en route to BC Distaff

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Last year, after Malathaat won the Grade 1 Alabama Stakes at Saratoga, Todd Pletcher elected to train her up to the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, in which she finished a very creditable third, a half-length behind upset winner Marche Lorraine.

This year, after Malathaat won Saturday’s Grade 1 Personal Ensign Stakes at Saratoga, Pletcher plans on taking a different tack toward the Breeders’ Cup Distaff on Nov. 5 at Keeneland.

Pletcher said Sunday he will point Malathaat to the Grade 1, $600,000 Spinster, a 1 1/8-mile race at Keeneland on Oct. 9.

“She’s 2 for 2 there, feel like she might benefit from another race as opposed to training up to the Breeders’ Cup as we did last year,” Pletcher said. “I think she’s a bigger, stronger, heavier filly than she was last year and I think [waiting for Breeders’ Cup] would be just a little too much time in between races to have her really at her best.”

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Malathaat ran one of her best races in the Personal Ensign, saving ground under John Velazquez, before tipping out for the stretch and running down Search Results to win the Personal Ensign by a half-length. That was a bounce-back performance from the Grade 2 Shuvee, in which she finished second to Clairiere. Pletcher felt Malathaat was adversely affected by the heat that day and he was expecting a big effort Saturday.

“Felt like in her training since the Shuvee, she trained as well as she ever has,” Pletcher said. “We were just hoping she would go over there and be her normal self in the paddock and the post parade and it helped that it was a relatively mild day temperature-wise, as opposed to the last time she ran. Pretty confident she didn’t handle the heat that day.”

Pletcher said Nest, his 3-year-old filly who won the Alabama this year, will likely make her next start in the Grade 2 Beldame at Aqueduct on Oct. 9.

Search Results, who won the Grade 3 Molly Pitcher at Monmouth Park before finishing second in the Personal Ensign, will target either the Spinster or train up to the Breeders’ Cup, trainer Chad Brown said Sunday.

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Meanwhile, trainer Steve Asmussen said Clairiere, who finished last as the favorite in the Personal Ensign, had a significant cut on her tongue. Asmussen believes that happened when Clairiere charged the gates before the official start of the race. She was last all the way around.

“She’s got a gash down the middle of her tongue,” Asmsusen said. “She heard something and she false broke and she never settled herself afterwards. Other than the cut on her tongue, she’s in good physical condition.”

Asmussen said he wouldn’t think about a race until he gets Clairiere’s tongue healed.