Clairiere edges Malathaat in an Ogden Phipps thriller

Elmont, N.Y.

It was supposed to be a showdown between Eclipse Award winners Letruska and Malathaat. But if a story opens with what it was supposed to be, of course it went a different direction.

Letruska (3-5) wilted to a hot early pace, and Malathaat (3-1) capitulated late in a thrilling duel with – wait for it – Clairière (9-2). The filly ridden by Joel Rosario and trained by Steve Asmussen truly earned her third Grade 1 victory in winning by a head in the $500,000 Ogden Phipps Stakes, a 1 1/16-mile race for older fillies and mares.

Even Rosario was not sure he had won.

“It looked like I was second,” he said with a laugh. “I know they went quick in front. I followed Johnny (Velázquez on Malathaat) the whole time. He was tough to beat. For a second I thought he might have gotten me. But she really responded well, and we were just lucky we got it.”

It really was a tale of two races. It started with Letruska and Search Results (5-1), who eventually finished 2 1/4 lengths back in third, running off to lead the other three starters by as many as 12 lengths. Letruska established the blazing early fractions of 22.75 and 45.23 seconds. They proved to be too fast for her.

“It was a very fast race, no?” Letruska’s trainer Fausto Gutiérrez said after the last year’s champion older dirt female was eased by José Ortiz to a last-place finish.

Ortiz was more blunt.

“They’re not going to let her go walk the dog all the time,” he said, perhaps remembering what happened when his brother, Irad Ortiz Jr., rode Letruska to her career-worst 10th-place finish against a similarly hot pace in the 2021 Breeders’ Cup Distaff. “I thought she could have won at the quarter pole, but she paid the price at the end.”

Usually keyed up before her races, Letruska was almost beside herself in the paddock more than 15 minutes before post time. That was when Gutiérrez walked over to an area beside the paddock, grabbed a hose and sprayed down his filly who has earned $2,963,529.

Gutiérrez suggested the long wait between leaving the receiving barn and hearing the call for riders up might have been a factor.

“She came very relaxed,” he said. “After we were at the receiving barn, she started to be more active. When we arrived here, it was like 28 minutes before the post. I don’t know. It’s the same for all the horses. And we lost.”

After Letruska folded, Search Results was left to hold the lead with a time of 1:09.23 through three-quarters of a mile and 1:34.71 after a mile. But Clairiére and Malathaat were coming. For an instant, it appeared Malathaat might have had a lapse in concentration.

“Johnny said she kind of lost focus the last sixteenth of a mile,” Malathaat’s trainer Todd Pletcher said. “It’s probably time to think about some blinkers, which we’ve had in the back of our minds for a while.”

In hindsight, Pletcher might be kicking himself that he did not make an equipment change sooner for a filly who, on her way to winning her division championship last year, won her first five races, including the 2021 Kentucky Oaks (G1). But she has gone 2-for-5 since. Her last win, in the Doubledogdare (G3) at Keeneland in April, showed Pletcher why he might have wanted to add blinkers.

“She made the lead and completely stopped,” he said. “She’s always been one that’s very curious and looks around a lot. It caught (Velázquez) off guard, because usually, if she has a horse next to her, she stays focused. The last 100 yards, she saw something and kind of came off the bridle.”

That left Clairière to seize the day. After a four-wide turn for home, she and Malathaat to her inside passed the rail-running Search Results in the last 70 yards. It was not until the final four strides of the race when Clairière gained the advantage that she held to the wire. Her winning time was 1:41.10.

“She was a wonderful filly last year,” Asmussen said, “but as a 4-year-old Curlin out of Cavorting, I think she’s faster now than she was then, and this is a tremendous stage for her to show it on.”

Bonny South (14-1) was a non-factor throughout the race and finished fourth, nine lengths behind Clairière and 26 3/4 lengths ahead of Letruska.

So no, it was not the Letruska-Malathaat rivalry that had been billed. But Clairière-Malathaat had a nice ring to Asmussen’s ears.

“It was just absolutely beautiful that her and Malathaat were that close to each other the entire race,” he said. “They’re great mares. It’s just an absolutely unbelievable marriage.”

That was a reference to their both being Curlin fillies bred in Kentucky by Barbara Banke’s Stonestreet Thoroughbred Holdings. Asmussen trained Curlin and Rachel Alexandra, both Hall of Famers, for Banke and her late husband Jess Jackson. Clairière continues to race as a homebred filly for Banke.

“I always felt Clairière was coming on strong,” Banke said. “That if she got a little bit of pace, she would do it, and she did it. I was happy to see Malathaat right behind her. You can’t beat that.”

The victory provided Asmussen with an experience as satisfying as his adventure Saturday with Echo Zulu was frustrating. She was scratched out of Saturday’s first Grade 1 race, the Acorn, because of a lame foot. Asmussen said X-rays were negative, so he was at a loss to explain it.

Asked to reflect on the high and the low in the same day, the winningest trainer in North American Thoroughbred history leaned on the fact that he also has saddled more racehorses than anyone.

“Who is better prepared to take it than somebody who has run 46,000?” Asmussen said. “It’s like ‘always’ and ‘never’ are two words that do not belong in this game. It’s just ‘what’s next?’ Being happy, appreciating something like this makes it that much more important. Because it means nothing when you start the next one.”

 For Clairière, the next one will be at Saratoga with the 1 1/8-mile Personal Ensign (G1) being a possible target Aug. 28. Oh, yes. There is the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Keeneland for which the Ogden Phipps was a win-and-you’re-in qualifier.

“The Breeders’ Cup is the big goal,” said Asmussen, who hopes Clairière will improve on her fourth-place finish last year at Del Mar. “We talked about that when she came back in training this year. We’ll just work back to that.”