Malathaat stunned at Spa
Maracuja edges 1-5 favorite in Coaching Club American Oaks
This was supposed to be a slam dunk.
The Grade I Coaching Club American Oaks was all about Malathaat, the best 3-year-old filly in the country. The three other seemingly overmatched fillies in the field for the 11⁄8-mile race were left to fight it out for second.
Then, Saratoga happened. There have been dozens of riveting upsets over the 153 years that thoroughbred racing has been held at Saratoga Race Course. Man o’war lost here. So did Triple Crown winners Gallant Fox and Secretariat. Six years ago, another Triple Crown champ, American Pharoah, couldn’t win the Travers. Plenty of others.
Saturday afternoon at the
Spa, the main track opened up and swallowed another horse that wasn’t expected to lose. Malathaat most likely won’t go down in history like some of her losing predecessors at the Spa, but when she lost the CCA Oaks, it was more than a mild surprise.
She was the 1-5 favorite after winning the first five starts of her career.
Her bid to make it six was not to be as Maracuja, the longest price on the short board at 14-1, had a match race with Malathaat for the final sixteenth of a mile. And, much to the surprise of the 30,184 at the Spa, it was Maracuja, racing on the outside, who pushed her head in front to secure the improbable victory.
When it was over, there was a hushed silence hanging over the
Spa grounds for a scant few seconds. Did this really just happen? Oh, yes, it just did.
Rob Atras, the 36-year-old trainer of Maracuja, was jubilant, yet stunned when he made his way to the winner’s circle. Obviously, he wasn’t expecting anything this big because he wasn’t wearing his Grade I duds. Atras was decked out in a shortsleeved pink button-down shirt, jeans and had a Yankees cap on top of his head.
The man who everyone thought would win, trainer Todd Pletcher, was decked out to the nines, wearing a smart blue suit. But there would be no party for Pletcher, who high-tailed it out of the winner’s circle and conferred with jockey John Velazquez.
Pletcher made a beeline to the paddock, where he had to saddle a horse for the next race. And, of course, he won that. With a 10-1 shot named Midnight Worker.
“She ran great,” Pletcher said of Malathaat as he absorbed the sting while waiting in the paddock. “She just got a little tired in the last part.”
Having a loss on the resume was the toughest part for Pletcher.
“That is the most disappointing thing,” he said. “I just feel badly for her that she suffered that first loss, but she was game in defeat.”
Malathaat was used to being on the other side of close decisions. She won the prestigious
Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs by a neck and took the Ashland at Keeneland by a head. Both of those races are also Grade Is.
The CCA Oaks was her first start since the April 30 Kentucky Oaks, a gap of 85 days. Pletcher said that layoff may have contributed to the defeat, but Maracuja had not raced since then, either.
Malathaat set swift early fractions of 23.38 seconds for the quarter-mile and 47.13 for the half. She was hounded from the start by Clairiere, the 5-2 second choice, and she and Irad Ortiz Jr. were still pressing Malathaat as they completed three quarters in 1:11.02.
Clairiere was finished but Malathaat had a new challenge from Maracuja, and jockey Ricardo Santana Jr. Malathaat could not hold off her upset-minded rival.
“She was comfortable in what she was doing,” Velazquez said. “But she had to fight the whole way around and, obviously, set it up for somebody else.”
It was the first Grade I win for Atras and for the gunmetal gray Maracuja. She only had a maiden win to her credit and was 71⁄2 lengths behind Malathaat in the Kentucky Oaks.
“I didn’t really think I could beat that filly, to be honest,”
Atras said. “The way the race set up, maybe she was softened up a little bit. When they turned for home, it looked like we had a shot for second. As the wire kept getting closer, she really laid it down. That filly of Todd’s … I didn’t think we were going to get by her. But our filly fought right to the wire, too.”
Maracuja is owned by Beach Haven Thoroughbreds and they had a healthy crowd in the winner’s circle. As the group watched the replay on the big board on the infield, they let out a victory holler when the finish was shown.
“We won it again,” Atras, speaking with the media, said with a smile.
Maracuja completed the 11⁄8 miles in 1:49.29 over the fast track and paid $31.40, and $6.00. There was no show wagering.
Rockpaperscissors, the other runner in the field of four, eased in the stretch and walked off.