Widger, ’05 Series champ, leads Miners
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Randomized, racing for Mechanicville’s Chad Brown and Seth Klarman’s Klaravich Stable, burst from the starting gate and made every stride a winning
Jim Franco/Times
Union one on her way to win the 143rd running of the prestigious Alabama Stakes, Saratoga’s signature event for fillies, on Saturday afternoon with 39,743 looking on.
Ten 3-year-old fillies went to the post for the $600,000, Grade I race of a mile and quarter, a distance none of them had ever tried before.
Those who came to the historic Spa to see the fillies run on a cloud-shrouded afternoon,
Inside Notes, handicappers’ picks, entries, results and more, had no trouble keeping track of Randomized. They only had to look for the horse in the lead and the jockey, Joel Rosario, wearing bright red and white silks.
Randomized appeared to have little or no trouble with the added distance which was 3/ 16ths of a mile longer than her
TROY — Sussex County Miners manager Chris Widger went from playing in independent baseball one season to celebrating a World Series title with the Chicago White Sox the next year.
Almost two decades later, Widger is in his first season back in independent ball leading the Miners of the independent Frontier League, who are playing a series this weekend race in Belmont’s Grade I Acorn Stakes in June. She started out stepping the first Alabama furlong in 23.45 seconds. She recorded a 1 minute, 12.33 seconds for the traditional sprint distance of six furlongs and completed the mile and a quarter in 2 minutes, 03.07 seconds on a track rated fast.
But, Rosario was not so sure the plan was to be on the front end for the whole race. “It against the Tri-City ValleyCats at Joseph L. Bruno Stadium.
Widger served as a backup catcher for the 2005 Chicago White Sox, who broke an 88year drought by sweeping the Houston Astros (then the ValleyCats’ parent club) to win the World Series.
“That’s what most people associate you with,” Widger said. “I was proud of my career. I wasn’t a great player. I was a very average to below average