Somali Lemonade finds success after changing style

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – Rare is the racehorse whose running style switches from one extreme to the other.

Rarer still is one to make such a transformation at the Grade 1 level, but that’s exactly what has occurred with Somali Lemonade, a former come-from-behinder who is now a grinder – and a far greater success – on the front end.

“I agree that you don’t see what she’s done very often – at all,” said Michael Matz, the genteel trainer who will be on hand Saturday at Arlington Park to saddle the 5-year-old Somali Lemonade for the Grade 1, $750,000 Beverly D., a Win and You’re In event for the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf.

As the winner of the Grade 1 Diana at Saratoga in her last start, Somali Lemonade will be one of the favorites in a terrific field of 11 fillies and mares expected for this 25th Beverly D. The mare was flown here Tuesday from Saratoga via equine charter, with Matz scheduled to travel in time to oversee her training Friday morning.

A Lemon Drop Kid mare owned by Matz’s sister-in-law, Caroline Forgason, Somali Lemonade began her career in the fall of 2011, winning her debut on the Belmont turf and the Grade 3 Jessamine Stakes on the Keeneland turf. Both came with eye-catching rallies from dead last in big fields.

At 3 and 4, Somali Lemonade was still dropping far back in the early stages of her races, but her stretch runs carried less punch: After those first two starts, she won just one of her next 16 races.

Knowing of few options, and contemplating retiring her, Matz added blinkers for her first start of 2014 in the Grade 3 Marshua’s River at Gulfstream Park. The mare finished second while showing newfound speed, then proceeded to win an allowance race at Keeneland and the Grade 3 Gallorette on the Preakness undercard at Pimlico, both times as a brazen front-runner under jockey Luis Saez.

“When she made the lead at Keeneland, I said, ‘What the hell is going on here?’ ” Matz recalled Tuesday from his main base at the Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland. “When Luis got back to the winner’s circle, I was laughing and saying, ‘What, she’s 5, and now you’re going to change her style?’ It really was something you don’t see very often.”

After the Pimlico win, Somali Lemonade finished third as the pacesetter in the Grade 1 Just a Game on the Belmont Stakes undercard before taking the July 19 Diana when Saez used a judicious sense of pace to coax her to the front late in the 1 1/8-mile race after being close up throughout.

“I don’t know if it’s the blinkers or the way [Saez] has been riding her, or confidence now that she’s 5,” said Matz. “All I know is it’s a good thing she’s running the way she is.”

No horse ever has won the Diana and Beverly D. in the same year, although two Beverly D. winners, Memories of Silver (1997) and Angara (2005), captured the Diana the following year. That bit of trivia is due primarily to scheduling that often had the races in close proximity to one another, but Matz nonetheless said he can appreciate the historical significance of winning both in the same year.

“She’s been a really nice filly,” said Matz, the former Olympic equestrian known best as the trainer of Barbaro. “From 2 to 5, she’s been able to keep going. I’ve never run a horse in the Beverly D., and I sure am excited about it. With the [Win and You’re In] option, we elected to come there because she came out of the Diana so well. She worked really well over the weekend at Saratoga and acts like she’s really enjoying what she’s doing.”

Somali Lemonade is expected to face four horses whom she defeated in the Diana: Stephanie’s Kitten (second), Alterite (eighth), Emollient (ninth), and Tannery (10th). Both Stephanie’s Kitten and Alterite are trained by Chad Brown, with Alterite being owned by Martin Schwartz, the Wall Street trader who has won the Beverly D. a record three times.

Alterite was making her first start in more than eight months when fading late in the Diana as the 5-2 favorite.

“I feel very good with her,” Schwartz told Arlington publicity last week. “She was coming off the layoff last out and was competing in her [seventh] consecutive Grade 1. She’s a terrific horse.”

These were the 11 expected when entries were taken Wednesday: Alterite, Emollient, Euro Charline, I’m Already Sexy, Just The Judge, La Tia, Somali Lemonade, Sparkling Beam, Stephanie’s Kitten, Street of Gold, and Tannery.