To say trainer Todd Pletcher holds the upper hand in Thursday’s $100,000 Birdstone at Saratoga would be an understatement. In fact, Pletcher will likely be favored to send out not only the winner, but also to finish one-two in the 1 3/4-mile marathon with defending champion Hard Study and prospective pacesetter You’re to Blame. They are definitely the ones to beat in a field of only five older horses that also includes Carlino, Arachnova, and Big Dollar Bill.
Hard Study rallied from just off the pace to a 2 1/4-length victory in the 2017 Birdstone. He would not race again for nearly eight months, returning in late March at Gulfstream Park to win a nine-furlong optional-claiming race in similar fashion. The performance served as the perfect prep for his subsequent 5 1/2-length triumph in the 1 3/8-mile Flat Out.
Hard Study’s modest three-race winning streak finally ended in his most recent appearance, when the long-winded son of Big Brown flattened out late to finish third in the Grade 2 Brooklyn on June 9, beaten three lengths by the multiple Grade 1 winner Hoppertunity.
“He didn’t really have an excuse in the Brooklyn,” Pletcher said. “He ran hard in [the Flat Out] – that might have had some effect – and the Brooklyn was a very tough race against some nice horses. He tried hard, he just didn’t get there. He’s training as well as ever at the moment. He’s the kind of a horse who gets himself into a steady rhythm and keeps going, and that’s what we’re hoping he’ll be able to do again.”
You’re to Blame also checked in third in his last start, the 1 1/16-mile State Dinner at Belmont four weeks ago. Pletcher will take the blinkers off You’re to Blame, who’ll stretch out beyond 1 1/8 miles for the first time in the Birdstone.
“We’re going to take the blinkers off and hope we can get him to relax,” Pletcher said. “In these types of races, the key is you’ve got to be able to settle a little bit to go that far. It came up a short field, so we decided to look at it, and right now we’re leaning on running him with the thought he might be able to steal it.”
Ian Wilkes counters the Pletcher duo with two his own, Archanova and Big Dollar Bill. Archanova finished third, beaten 4 ¼ lengths by Hard Study in the 2017 Birdstone after forcing the early pace, and he figures to be a forward factor again with the lack of speed in the field. Big Dollar Bill must prove his mettle beyond 1 1/8 miles while trying to make amends for losing as the favorite at Churchill Downs in his last two starts.
Carlino finished far behind You’re to Blame earlier this winter at Gulfstream Park and was also beaten 10 lengths by Hard Study in the Flat Out. He did rebound with an improved effort in the Brooklyn when finishing fifth, only a length behind Hard Study, despite fanning well wide with his bid into the stretch.
In saratoga living‘s “The Races!” Issue, post-races mainstay, Siro’s, offered up what they believe is the “Next Great Saratoga Cocktail.” Thirty-year-veteran General Manager and Maître d’ Michael Stone, stepping in for the restaurant/bar’s normal mixologist, offered up Siro’s Ginger Mint Mojito. Here’s how to make it.
Mixologist: Michael Stone* Bar: Siro’s Restaurant & Bar Cocktail: Siro’s Ginger Mint Mojito
The delicious rum-based concoction, the Mojito, was first served in Havana, Cuba’s picturesque capital city. The cocktail was also said to be author Ernest Hemingway’s favorite drink. With racehorses and, I suspect, more than a few saloons named after him, it seemed to me an appropriate inspiration for a feature cocktail at Siro’s. I chose the Ginger Mint Mojito not only because it’s a perfect summer refreshment, but also, specifically, because of the crispness the freshly muddled ginger adds to the summertime drink. Whether you took a beating at the track or are celebrating a big score, this libation will be a welcome prelude to dinner or just a great way to beat the heat of a Saratoga summer.
Siro’s Ginger Mint Mojito
Ingredients
1.5 oz. Bacardi Superior Rum
0.5 oz. Club soda
Fresh mint
Fresh ginger
Finely granulated sugar
Fresh lime juice
Fresh lime (for garnish)
Instructions
Muddle the fresh mint and ginger in a clear Collins glass. Combine the Bacardi Superior Rum, club soda, fresh lime juice, granulated sugar in a shaker with ice. Shake and pour into the glass. Garnish with a fresh lime.
*Michael’s been the General Manager and Maître d’ at Siro’s for 30 years and says he’s just filling in for their regular bartender.
When I travel by plane, I snack and drink and pray for a bump-free ride. What about the horses that fly in to compete at Saratoga Race Course? Apparently, they don’t have to do much praying. “We avoid turbulence at all costs,” says Greg Otteson, Sales Manager for H.E. “Tex” Sutton Forwarding Company in Lexington. “We’ll fly a long ways around a storm just to avoid it.” On the company’s Boeing 727 cargo plane—a.k.a. Air Horse One (ha!)—up to 21 equine passengers stand close together in stalls, so the jet ascends and descends more slowly than on you-and-me-type flights. Horse ears are also more sensitive to changes in air pressure—but they experience something similar to what humans do with shifts in altitude. “You quite often see them, when you get up to altitude or when you land, kind of adjusting their jaws. I think they’re popping their ears,” Otteson says. And like me, horses enjoy in-flight snacks. “We put a hay bag or net in front of them, just to give them something to munch on.”
Triple Crown winner American Pharoah arriving at Albany International Airport in 2015. (Albany International Airport Authority)
Countless of Thoroughbreds have come to town since Saratoga Race Course opened in 1864. In the olden days, racehorses were walked to the track from Sanford Stud Farm in Amsterdam, NY, 30 miles away. For decades, until the late 1960s, they chugged in by train. Last summer, Air Horse One touched down nine times at Albany International Airport. Each landing is carefully choreographed. After the plane gently lands, a special ramp with five-foot-tall sides is put in place. That’s when the horse vans drive onto the airfield. The horses are led off the plane and down the ramp onto more ramps that connect to trucks. “They never touch ground,” says Nicole Pieratt, President and CEO of Sallee Horse Vans Inc. Sallee, also based in Lexington, carries hundreds of horses to Saratoga each year, not only from the airport, but also directly from racetracks and horse farms all over the East and South, in 48-foot-long trailers with cameras that keep an eye on each horse. “Most of them come from the Belmont-Aqueduct area or the different Kentucky tracks,” Pieratt says.
While most Air Horse One landings are off-limits to the public—except on rare occasions, such as the arrival of Triple Crown-winner American Pharoah in 2015—the Sallee trucks are always an exciting sight in Saratoga. “When [locals] see the horse vans rolling in, it’s a sign that the season’s almost here,” Pieratt says. The August yearling sales at Fasig-Tipton are especially nostalgic, she says. “It’s a foggy, early Saratoga morning, and here comes a caravan of 20 horse trucks from Kentucky.”
I hear you, Nicole. When the trailers clatter into town, they remind me that Saratoga’s a special place. Sometimes, I lean out my car window and talk to the traveling horses. “How was your trip? Where do you come from?” I say. But these animals are neigh-sayers. Not one has answered me yet.
It’s 7am on a Monday morning in May, and my heart is thumping with excitement as I drive through the front gate of the Oklahoma track, the oldest operating horse training facility in America. Sure, I’d been to the Oklahoma on the guided tours before—but I’d forgotten what it felt like to be in such a historic place. In the peaceful early morning, when the air’s cool and the grass is still dewy, you can stand at the rail in awe, listening to the rhythmic explosion of breath as a Thoroughbred pumps its muscled body around the track. You walk on dirt paths that wind through a labyrinth of barns neatly arranged under towering pines and massive maples. During racing season, when the horses cross the street to Saratoga Race Course, traffic stops on Union Avenue and drivers can’t help but stare at the magnificent animals.
I got the invite to the Oklahoma from Georgie Nugent, one of 11 members of StarLadies Racing, a partnership made up of only women racehorse owners, who purchase only fillies (about five per year). Nugent, who lives a short walk from the Oklahoma, is similarly awestruck by what goes on inside its gates. She and I watch as sunlight and water droplets dance on the strong backs of three horses enjoying a post-workout bath. “I love this part—the steam coming off their bodies,” says Nugent. Soon after, I follow her to the barn of seven-time Eclipse Award-winning trainer Todd Pletcher, who trains the partnership’s precious stock, and the stall of New York Charmer, a two-year-old dark bay. The young horse pokes her head, marked with a small white star, toward us. “She’s a sweetie,” says Nugent, patting her mane. “You fall in love with them, for sure. It’s like having one of your children race.” Nugent, who’s an environmental engineer, visits New York Charmer and Orra Moor, another StarLadies filly at Saratoga Springs, at least once a week before work.
While the number of partners in StarLadies shifts from year to year, this racing season, the core includes Nugent and Diana Ryan, both from Saratoga Springs; Barbara Lucarelli from Duanesburg; Mary Nixon from Louisville; Leigh Butler from Colorado Springs; and six other members hailing from places such as Florida, Georgia and Ohio. StarLadies was launched five years ago as an offshoot of Starlight Racing, a separate partnership founded by Jack and Laurie Wolf in 2000. In 18 years, Starlight has won 69 races (24 of which were Grade I), 3 Eclipse Awards and a Triple Crown, courtesy of Justify. (Partnerships own percentages of horses they acquire together.) With a few partners, Laurie launched StarLadies in 2013. “There are a lot of ladies who are in the horse business and who love horses, and I thought it would be fun to get a group of women together who have the same passion,” says Laurie. “What we do that’s a little different is, when you buy into StarLadies, you own a piece of all of them.” The Starlight partners purchase fillies at yearling sales at Fasig-Tipton in Lexington and Saratoga and at Keeneland, and that’s followed by a good deal of companionship, enjoyment and well, winning. In 2016, for example, the StarLadies partnership won 25 percent of its races, and the following year, 27 percent.
StarLadies partners often get together at tracks where their horses races, such as Churchill Downs, where these women met at the 2015 Kentucky Oaks. (StarLadies Racing)
So what’s it like being a part of StarLadies? “I was attracted to StarLadies, because it was a bunch of very strong women who enjoyed the sport as much as I did,” says Nugent, who bought in last year. “I love everything they stand for…the female aspect, empowering women in horse racing.” The only female member of the New York Racing Association board, Nugent grew up riding but didn’t fall in love with racing until she moved to Saratoga a decade ago. A StarLadies member since 2015, Louisvillian Nixon worked on Thoroughbred farms and at yearling sales during her college days. She signed up after retiring as an exec at Yum! Brands, because she wanted to get back into horse racing and socialize with like-minded women. “Most of my career, I was pretty much surrounded by men,” she says. In Colorado Springs, Leigh Butler, an original StarLadies partner, has been a passionate racehorse owner for more than two decades. “I absolutely love attending the races, and StarLadies fillies run at the best, most iconic racetracks in the country: Saratoga, Belmont, Keeneland, just to name a few of my favorites,” she says. “Last year I was able to attend 22 races, including the Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar.”
While StarLadies is certainly a business partnership—at the end of the day, racing’s about winning and making money—it’s also become a social setting for the mothers, grandmothers and career professionals who comprise it. The members get to know one another at yearling sales and training facilities, and then meet up at the racetracks during racing season. “We all join together and cheer on the horses together. It’s exciting,” says Nugent. Wolf concurs. “There’s not a get-together that we’re not laughing about something or raising a glass to cheer. Even though we don’t always win, we still have a good time.” In fact, many of the women in the partnership have become really close. “We have barbecues together, we get our kids together,” says Nugent. For Nixon, her participation in StarLadies helped draw in her entire family. In 2017, her husband and father-in-law bought into Starlight and its minority interest in Justify. This year, three generations cheered him on as he won the Triple Crown at Belmont Park on June 9. “It’s one thing to go to the races,” says Nixon. “It’s a whole different feeling when you have part ownership of a horse.” Watching Justify run “was so surreal, I didn’t even get nervous,” she says. “I just sat there like I was having some sort of out-of-body experience.”
The StarLadies partnership is all encompassing in the sense that its members not only own an interest in each horse, but also take part in the duties of a single owner—such as naming their fillies. Nugent dreamed up the moniker New York Charmer, while Butler came up with five names, including those of current runners Stainless and Makealittlemischief. It’s also educational. “It’s about having the opportunity to interface with an incredible trainer like Todd Pletcher,” says Nixon. “And the mentality of buying the horses. It’s a whole other layer of learning for me.” Donna Barton Brothers, a former jockey and NBC Sports reporter, is Starlight’s Chief Operating Officer, and is married to Frank Brothers, its bloodstock agent. “She is so well-versed in the sport,” says Nugent of Brothers. “When I have a question, especially from a business perspective, I’ll call her. The same with Laurie.” And perhaps most important to its membership, StarLadies has become a means by which to support other women in the horse racing community. “Maybe it seems like it’s male-dominated, but from the top to the bottom, we’ve got women that own farms, do breeding, do consigning, work the sales companies, are owners, trainers or assistant trainers,” says Wolf. “There are so many women in this industry. We’re here and we all know we’re here. It’s like the outside world doesn’t really notice that. We are trying to get that across to the next generation—helping them, giving them a leg up, giving them contacts.”
Here at the Oklahoma, it’s easy to dream big, with Saratoga Race Course so close by. The impact StarLadies has had on Nugent isn’t lost on her. “Here at the track, even if you’re a spectator or walking around in the backstretch or here at the barn, you’ll learn something new about this sport every day,” she says.
By the time I drive back out of the gate, I’m promising myself that I’ll return here for another guided tour. We’ve got family from Las Vegas traveling here for the races in August, when the horses’ bright-colored leg wraps hang on the fences and the air is sweet with the smell of hay. The Vegas people will love the tour. And I will, too.
I never considered the historical significance of Saratoga Race Course when I went to the track as a kid. It was summer, school was out and my pre-adolescent brain wasn’t required to produce a lot of deep, contemplative thought. I knew the track was ancient, but that’s about all I knew. I sure liked it, though. The horses amazed me (they still do), the people were interesting to watch (they still are) and one day, I got Angel Cordero, Jr.’s autograph (which I still have). It was all so surreal and wondrous. I eventually became a sportswriter, and one of my first assignments was to develop a package of history pieces on the racetrack. Sounded like fun! That’s when it hit me—I didn’t know a single relevant thing that would be helpful in crafting a series of such narratives. Well, I knew Cordero was good, but it didn’t take a genius to figure that one out.
John Morrissey, who’s credited with bringing horse racing to Saratoga Springs, was a champion bare-knuckle boxer and later, a politician. (Library of Congress)
So I hit the books. My reading list included Such Was Saratoga by Hugh Bradley, The Noble Animals by Landon Manning, They’re Off!: Horse Racing At Saratoga by Edward Hotaling and Foundations of Fame by Michael Veitch, all of which remain on my shelf and should be required reading for any Saratoga racing aficionado. During my research, I kept coming across the name John “Old Smoke” Morrissey. Boy, had I been missing out. At first, Morrissey seemed like a fictional character. His story was that outrageous. An Irish immigrant who grew up in nearby Troy, Morrissey graduated from street brawling to the manly art of formal bare-knuckle boxing. He cracked a lot of heads, reigned as the American champion for five years and retired undefeated. With his pugilistic days in the past, Morrissey arrived in Saratoga Springs during the Civil War. Thoroughbred racing was on hold in the war-torn South, so Morrissey, only 32 years old at the time, thought he could prosper by conceiving and presiding over a racing meet at Saratoga. He was right. Taking place only a few weeks after the Battle of Gettysburg, Saratoga’s inaugural four-day meet in August 1863 was held at an old trotting track (known today as Horse Haven) and was a resounding success.
But Morrissey wasn’t done yet. He went bigger—much bigger. With the backing of some prominent sportsmen, Morrissey opened Saratoga Race Course across the street from the trotting grounds on August 2, 1864. The first race was the Travers Stakes, won by a mighty colt named Kentucky. A week later, at the conclusion of the first season at the new track, The New York Times reported: “Brilliant as had been the previous portion of the Saratoga meeting, it ‘culminated in a blaze of glory’ on Saturday, the concluding day. The grand stand was a superb array of beauty and fashion, the like of which has never previously been seen in America, and has only been paralleled by Ascot or Goodwood, in England, on a Royal Cup day.”
In the years following Saratoga Race Course’s opening, Morrissey became a two-term United States Congressman and then was twice elected to the New York State Senate. Even with his political commitments, Morrissey maintained his majority ownership stake in the track and oversaw its continued success. After becoming ill while campaigning for his second term in the Senate, Morrissey died of pneumonia on May 1, 1878, at The Adelphi Hotel. He was only 47. A lot of great names have followed Morrissey into Saratoga lore: Travers, Whitney and Vanderbilt…Man o’ War, Native Dancer and Secretariat…trainers “Sunny Jim” Fitzsimmons and Bob Baffert, jockeys Eddie Arcaro and the aforementioned Cordero, among countless others. They owe John Morrissey a debt of gratitude for his vision and resolve. We all do. I’m glad I opened those books all those years ago. What I found was truly extraordinary. Truly.
Dubbed The Sultan of Saratoga, New York-bred gelding Fourstardave earned his place in Saratoga Race Course lore by winning at least one race at the track for eight consecutive years (1987-1994).
Bred and owned by Richard Bomze and trained by Leo O’Brien, Fourstardave won 21 of his 100 lifetime starts and finished in the top three 55 times, with earnings of $1,636,737. Upon his retirement, Fourstardave was honored at Siro’s restaurant, where he was presented with an edible key to the city and had a small nearby lane named in his honor (Fourstardave Way).
The New York Racing Association has recognized him with a Grade I race and a sports bar in the lower carousel at the Race Course. Fourstardave died in 2002 at the age of 17 and was buried at the track’s Clare Court, joining Mourjane and A Phenomenon. (They’re the only three horses buried there; a fourth, Go For Wand, is buried in Saratoga’s infield.)
Fourstardave’s gravestone at Saratoga Race Course. (Brien Bouyea)
Here Are Three Things You Should Know About Fourstardave:
1. In the 1991 Daryl’s Joy Stakes at the Saratoga Race Course, Fourstardave set a track record for 1 1/16 miles on turf, covering the distance in 1:38.91. The record stood until 2015 (when it was beaten by Ironicus). The Daryl’s Joy was later renamed The Fourstardave.
2. Fourstardave raced at 13 different tracks in his career. He competed in New York, New Jersey, Florida, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Hampshire, Minnesota and even Hong Kong. Twenty-one of his races took place at Saratoga. He won nine of those, including six stakes races.
3. In 1997, at the age of 12, Fourstardave competed in a steeplechase exhibition race at the Kentucky Horse Park to raise money for charity. He finished second.
Training racehorses isn’t an easy job. At all. Some trainers do it for the love of the sport or the money, while others do it for the fame and glory and horses (or all of the above). It’s a sport and a game and a hobby to those outside the barns, but beyond the fences and security, it’s a taxing job that’s accompanied by the highest highs and lowest lows—not to mention pressure, especially to succeed, and succeed now, as owners often get in the game to win and only win. It takes up all of a trainer’s time, and a trainer gives up everything in his or her life to do the job successfully. It’s a mission and a goal that demands excellence, patience and stick-to-it-ive-ness beyond one’s common imagination. It’s a tiresome seven-day-a-week responsibility that requires you to be a master of everything horse-related, including having an abundance of medical and psychological expertise, as well as being a management guru to your staff. Because let’s face it, without a great staff, any attempt at success would be futile. Sure, you ultimately want to win and produce winners and make money, but in reality, nothing matters more to a horse trainer than his horses’ well-being, and that’s especially true of trainer Eric Guillot.
Eric’s a client of mine at Woody’s Barbershop near Downtown Saratoga Springs, and I met him many years ago before he swashbuckled his way into the Saratoga Race Course history books (I’ll get to that in a minute). We’ve developed a great admiration for each other. In fact, I was even lucky enough to walk his horse, Laoban, down the shoot and into the paddock, prior to his major victory at the 2016 Jim Dandy Stakes (the horse has since retired, and is now an outstanding stud at Sequel Stallions in Hudson). Eric’s a trainer who’s often portrayed as having an outlandish personality and using voodoo dolls to conjure up wins. But truth be told, he’s an amazingly skilled and impressive horseman. (In other words, he doesn’t need the dark arts to succeed.)
Intentionally, Eric only has a limited number of horses in his barn—just 11—and cares for them every day, all the time, usually from their birth on the farm to their first step on the track (if they end up competing). That sort of barn management can have its advantages. Plus, he literally trains every single horse himself. OK, so he may not ride his horses around the Oklahoma training track physically, but he watches their every step, monitors their every breath and observes their every thought and physical tendency and always considers what’s best for them. He’s so knowledgeable about each individual horse that he can often address issues before they even happen.
Generally, trainers arrive at the track every day of the week around 5am—some earlier, some later—and I meet up with him for my horse trainer-shadowing session, at 5am sharp. At the barn, his eight staff members are already in full working mode (their days begin even earlier, between 3:30-4:30am), each with his own individual responsibility. Eric meets with his longtime friend and most trusted staffer, Sixto, who’s been with him for the last dozen years. They go over the day’s preplanned schedule for each horse (it’s set days in advance) and talk about what may have been going on in the barns or with the horses’ health, then break the huddle to get it all going. Next, Eric takes me to each stall and introduces me to every horse, walking me through their backgrounds.
Eric Guillot (center) with his wife, Anna, and jockey José Ortiz, along with writer Joe “Woody” Wood (far right) on the day Laoban took the 2016 Jim Dandy. (Martin Benjamin)
Currently, all of Eric’s horses are part of Southern Equine Stable LLC, which is made up of Eric and his best friend, Mike Moreno. Yes, he’s the namesake of the horse Moreno, who won the largest payout in Saratoga racing history—sorry, Secretariat—in the $1.5 million Whitney Handicap in 2014, with an upset of the great racehorse Palace Malice. No other trainer in the history of Saratoga can make that claim, and deservedly so, he’s damn proud of it. Moreno also missed winning the Travers Stakes by a nose at 30-1 odds in 2013. So close.
It’s now 5:45am, and we’re ready for the first two horses to hit the training track. Exercise riders Alex and Riccordo get their final instructions from Eric about what they need to accomplish, and we slowly follow the horses across the street. All the while, Eric’s watching their every step, while sharing some inside tips and training secrets with me. Then he says they’re ready to go. From my vantage point, the horses gallop well, running fast and finishing out strongly. They’re just physically beautiful, and both look like sure winners—but not to Eric just yet. He’s a little disappointed that one of them didn’t really show enough effort today, unlike the horse’s last bullet work (i.e., the best workout time for that specific distance). He explains that this isn’t out of the ordinary, though, and like people, horses sometimes have bad days: General soreness from a workout or a sudden mood swing could affect the way they perform. But he assures me he’ll double- and triple-check them when we return to the barns.
After asking Eric a plethora of crazy questions, he shares with me the importance of knowing every detail about every horse, including each horses’ medical history—from the daily aches and pains to the slightest change in step, stride or mood. He even knows his horses’ complete breeding records by heart. “Every little bit of knowledge is imperative in knowing how each individual horse should be cared for,” says Eric. “Each horse’s well-being is dependent on this knowledge because nothing is more important than the horse’s health. Not even winning.” This reminds me of the 2014 Whitney, when Eric not only earned the greatest victory of his career with Moreno, but also suffered its most tragic loss, when his promising two-year-old colt, Sir William Bruce, died right after his debut race. Watching a grown man cry is never fun. Eric was devastated by the loss. He loves his horses. While losing a horse is not the part of the sport anyone likes to hear about, that day showed me just how much these trainers really care for their horses.
Having spent the entire day shadowing Eric, I came away with this big lesson: Being a trainer isn’t as easy as it looks, and in order to be a successful one, you have to make a ton of sacrifices. It’s your full-time job and lifestyle. If you happen to run into Eric at the track this summer, don’t hesitate to say hello and ask him a friendly question or two. He’s easygoing, loves to impart racing knowledge and is truly an expert in his field. Simply put, he’s a proven winner.
For more musings by Joe “Woody” Wood, read his regular column, “Woody’s Horse Hunch,” exclusively on saratogaliving.com.
When it comes to royalty and racing, I’m in it purely for the hats. The sheer whimsy and impracticality of fanciful cranial adornments have long made them the objects of fantasy for regular folk. And while most of us may not receive an invitation to a wedding at Buckingham Palace, many will have the opportunity to rub shoulders with the smart set at Saratoga Race Course’s Travers Stakes this and every August for many years to come.
Karen Sewell is one of those people who loved the idea of getting in on the fun north of the neck. The creative force behind Saratoga Springs’ Pommenkare Fine Millinery (sold at Saratoga Trunk on Broadway in Saratoga Springs) just happened to live across the street from the racetrack, and thought she’d try her hand at millinery—with unfortunate results. “I thought, hey, we’ll go to the races, and I’ll make some hats! My first attempts were not good,” says Sewell with a laugh. “I thought, if I’m going to do this, then I’m going to do it right—so I started studying.”
The Rochester Institute of Technology graduate was already artistic, holding a degree in photographic illustration and design, and found the process of hat-making to be a satisfying outlet to express her design ideas. “I love to create sculpture you can wear,” she says. She draws inspiration from the world around her, and especially from nature, but carefully avoids looking at other milliners’ work. “I experiment with the juxtaposition between warm and cold, organic and geometric. My designs tend to morph and change as I create them.”
As a huge fan of dramatic flourishes in both interior design and fashion, it was easy for me to fall for Sewell’s brand of whimsy. From gravity-defying fascinators to aggressively exaggerated wide-brimmed bonnets, her creations are all one-of-a-kind, created by her alone. “You can find hats at all quality levels and price points here in town, but mine are all stitched by hand—no glue!” she says. At any one time, Sewell has as many as six hats in production, all in varying stages of completion. “It’s a time-consuming process,” she says.
One of the creations of which she’s most proud also pushed the ingenuity envelope for Sewell: a commission from a college graduate seeking to transform into Marie Antoinette for her graduation portrait. “I built a model ship, complete with satin sails to incorporate into the design,” Sewell tells me. “That hat weighed quite a few pounds!” They don’t call her a millinery artist for nothing.
After a busy and somewhat productive first half of the year, Originator kicks off the second half of her 3-year-old campaign as a contender in a seemingly wide-open $100,000 Coronation Cup on Monday at Saratoga.
A field of 10 was entered for the 5 1/2-furlong turf stakes for 3-year-old fillies with only one horse, Factorofwon, having won a stakes race.
Originator, a debut winner at Gulfstream for trainer Ian Wilkes in January, is coming out of a second-place finish to Road to Victory in the Alywow Stakes at Woodbine on June 9. Road to Victory, the only horse to defeat Monomoy Girl, came back to run second in the Grade 2 Mother Goose on June 30.
The Alywow was the fifth race of the year for Originator. She was given a freshening after that and has come back with a strong work tab.
“Her race at Woodbine was a good race; that was a nice filly that beat her,” Wilkes said. “I backed off her after I sent her to Woodbine and sort of pointed to this race.”
Jose Ortiz, aboard for Wilkes’s lone winner of the meet thus far, has the call.
Mominou and Broadway Run finished a half-length apart in a first-level allowance race at Belmont on May 31. Mominou came back to run second in her first try at the second-level allowance condition, losing to the the 4-year-old filly Fear No Evil, a four-time winner.
“The two times she’s gotten beat were against older fillies,” trainer Jimmy Toner said. “Since we put her on the grass she’s turned everything around. She’s a nice filly. We get to run her against straight 3-year-olds and see where she stacks up.”
Broadway Run, trained by John Terranova, won her debut at odds of 50-1 before running second to Mominou 26 days later.
“I thought she’d make an impact, but I didn’t know she’d win first time out,” Terranova said. “We’re cutting back a little bit but she’s fast. My filly’s training like she’s going to go forward. She’s really sharp. She wasn’t working like this before.”
Factorofwon took the Black Pearl Stakes going down the hill at Santa Anita in May. She is coming off a second-place finish in the Stormy Blues Stakes at Laurel on July 7 and is now making her first start for trainer Christophe Clement.
Trainer Chad Brown sends out the uncoupled entry of Brattata, who finished second in her lone start at 5 1/2 furlongs, and Lady Suebee, who cuts back to a sprint after finishing fifth in the Wild Applause Stakes at a mile. Two starts back, Lady Suebee won a first-level allowance going six furlongs over the Belmont turf.
Closer Still, Classy Dancer, and Flashly round out the field.
The rain didn’t stop some 500 guests from coming out for a night of food, drinks, music and, yes, mingling at the 8th Annual Music & Mingling gala at the Saratoga Polo Field this past May. “It’s a mingling party. Obviously, I think that people come because they want to support the Senior Center, but I do think it’s a great business networking event that people look forward to every year,” says Lois Celeste, Executive Director of the Saratoga Senior Center, the event’s beneficiary.
Trust me, the event’s highlights—a delicious buffet by Old Daley Custom Catering, an open bar, a photo booth with beautiful hats from Saratoga Trunk for accessories, music by Grand Central Station and a Veuve Clicquot tent, where guests could open champagne bottles with a sword (yikes!)—were just as enticing as the mingling. “Eighty-five percent of our funds go toward programming,” Celeste says. “We’re making sure we try to meet the needs of the growing senior population. These fundraisers are just critical to that support.”
With $135,000 raised—almost $25,000 more than at last year’s event—the Senior Center is poised to offer great programming to Saratoga’s seniors in the coming year. As for me? I’m looking forward to the great programming (not the least of which is the champagne sabering) at next year’s event. Take a look at some of the photos from the party in the above gallery.
