Leigh Delacour sat in her office – one of the portable sheds many trainers use at Saratoga Race Course as offices, tack rooms and whatever else – at about 9 a.m., just outside of her and husband Arnaud’s stalls at the end of Carlos Martin’s barn on the far turn of the main track. She waited for the Oklahoma Training Track to reopen at 9:30 after a renovation break, at that time she would hop on No Dozing and breeze the 3-year-old for the last time before this week’s Grade 1 Allen Jerkens.
Delacour killed time scrolling through the nominations on her phone for the Grade 1 Forego, trying to decide whether to run Diving Rod back on two weeks rest and lamenting a tough luck second with Light Up Our World in the Grade 3 Violet Stakes at Monmouth Park Saturday. She also talked about a maiden 2-year-old filly she rode that morning before 6, in order to be accompanied by Graham Motion’s pony and Vicky King.
About 10 hours later, that filly was no longer a maiden.
“It helps a lot to have a pony,” said Delacour, who has been heading up a small string of horses locally since the start of the meet.
In her second start, Layla Noor won the fifth, a 1 1/16-mile turf maiden for 2-year-old fillies.
“I was concerned she might pull off the sprint first time out and in the morning she is quite keen, she’s a very good breeze horse, so I was nervous she would set too solid of fractions in front like our last two starters have,” Delacour said after leaving the winner’s circle with her mother Martha and sons Julien and Luca. “She took it well, I was concerned it would go to her head in the wrong way, but she actually it took it in stride.”
The Lael Stables’ homebred filly out their stakes-winning mare Senada settled kindly for Julien Leparoux, racing in second until she took the lead passing the eighth-pole and then ran on strongly through the wire to win by three-quarters of length.
“We paddock schooled her a couple of times, because the first time she was pretty unsettled,” said Delacour, who saddled the filly on the walk in the paddock. “It didn’t particularly look it, but that was a great improvement.”
– Ben Gowans
• Jim Bond waited a long time to meet Empressof The Nile in the winner’s circle and his patience paid off Sunday as the 3-year-old filly won the third race at Saratoga Race Course.
Bond selected Bill Clifton’s Pioneerof The Nile filly at the 2015 Keeneland September yearling sale and aided in her $75,000 purchase.
“Big, scopey filly,” said Bond. “She’s a pretty filly. She’s got a big heart. We’ve got a great team that works with us buying horses that have been with us a long time and hopefully she’s another special one.”
Bond worked Empressof The Nile up to the 1 3/16-mile distance of Sunday’s allowance on the grass, with six previous starts for the filly at no less than 1 mile. After two starts on the dirt, Bond added blinkers and put her on the grass.
“She’s got that low, A.P. Indy style,” Bond said. “I thought she was a dirt horse, she really drove me nuts.
“I sent her on the grass and worked her at Palm Meadows and wow. Mr. Clifton was in town for the Sunshine Millions for Our Way and I put her in behind horses and she just blew the other horses off the course. I told him this filly was going to be okay.”
After finishing third to eventual Grade 2 Lake Placid winner Proctor’s Ledge in her first start on the grass at Gulfstream Park in January, the filly made three more starts. She finished sixth in her last going a 1 1/4 miles at Belmont in May.
“There was no mile and an eighth, so I ran her a mile and a quarter in New York, the purse is $90,000, so I figured I’d get that out of the way, give her six or eight weeks after that and get her ready for up here and we got beat and I was really upset,” said Bond. “I shouldn’t have done it; I’d shipped her from Keeneland and entered back a little quicker than I typically run a horse back.”
Nearly three months since her last start, Empressof The Nile broke from the gate with Jose Ortiz aboard, immediately going to the front and chasing behind the leader in second. Ortiz assumed the lead at the half-mile marker, taking it to the wire to win by 6 1/4 lengths.
“Turf gallops and two minute licks, the European thing. A bob here and a bob there,” said Bond. “Of course, Jose rides the perfect race.
“At the half-mile pole I was going to shoot him, I didn’t want her that close. I didn’t mind him stalking but I didn’t want to make the lead and have him run out of horse. She was there. Jose says, ‘I got fired at the three-eighths pole and at the sixteenth pole I got my job back.’ ”
– Shayna Tiller
