Photo: Adam Coglianese
by Sarah Mace
Chester and Mary Broman’s Mineralogist, a multiple stakes winner at two, absent at three and still seeking a victory after four starts this year at four, reaffirmed her talent and class on Monday, winning Saratoga’s $75,000 Saratoga Dew for New York-bred fillies after an agile maneuver in the stretch and show of grit at the wire to get a head in front in a four-way blanket finish.
Mineralogist has had a tough row to hoe since her standout juvenile campaign for trainer John Kimmel, when she won three of five starts, including the Joseph A. Gimma and Maid of the Mist, and finished second in the Lucy Scribner. Sidelined first by knee surgery, then an infection, the Mineshaft filly missed all of 2010. In four starts this year she had yet to hit the board, due mostly to bad racing luck.
Debra Roma Photography
The 1 1/8-mile Saratoga Dew attracted a field of six New York-bred fillies and mares three and up. Nearly evenly favored in the betting were co-highweights Bankers Buy (2.30-1), a stakes winner last out and second in the Saratoga Dew last year, and Grade 2-placed Spa City Princess (2.40-1), both carrying 124 pounds. Mineralogist was fifth choice at 7.50-1 under David Cohen, as she embarked on her first two turn contest.
After the break Spa City Princess grabbed the lead and then controlled the pace, taking the field through measured early fractions of 25.18 and 50.47. Banker’s Buy tracked in second a length and a half off the pace, while Mineralogist set up at the rail in unhurried in fifth then fourth, running five lengths from the front.
In the far turn, Mineralogist picked up the pace and closed ground, cornering neatly and setting up to make a bid at the rail. At the three-sixteenths marker, however, the opening at the fence closed up. Undaunted, David Cohen shifted his filly out into the three path at the eighth pole and the pair closed swiftly. With Banker’s Buy taking over a narrow lead from Spa City Princess and Go Unbridled closing well late, the first four across the line were only heads and a neck apart, with Mineralogist prevailing. Banker’s Buy finished second, Go Unbridled third and pacesetter Spa City Princess finished fourth. After three-quarters of a mile run in 1:15.10 and a mile in 1:40.03, the final time for the 1 1/8 miles was 1:53.11. [VIDEO]
Debra Roma Photography
Winning trainer John Kimmel was all smiles after the filly’s third stakes victory and first 2011 score. “That was her first win since her 2-year-old year,” Kimmel said. “At times she’s had knee surgery and a puncture wound that got an infection up into her knee that made her down time even longer. She had many days on the farm when she was lame. We ran through a lot of different therapies to get her back to the races. Once we did get her back, she was breezing very well.”
Kimmel also explained Mineralogist’s apparently sub-par performances in her prior four starts this year. “We shipped her up from Florida in March, and her first race [the Broadway] was a horrible race for her. In her next race, her shoe fell off and she stuck one of the nails in her foot and got an abscess. Her third race was a prep for the overnight stakes [on July 17], and then in the stakes I gave the jockey bad instructions and told him to keep her a little closer to the pace. Maybe she’ll have a little more to say as the year goes on.”
David Cohen said, “She’s got this nice, one-run style. The last time she ran, we put her a little more on the engine to try and keep her closer. Today we let her fall back and let her do her thing. It was an easy pace, but we weren’t too far off them. We were right in contention. Around the eighth pole, [Spa City Princess] was coming off the rail, so we took a chance and tried to get through; that wasn’t an opportunity anymore so we had to take hold and go around. It doesn’t matter with her if you lose momentum. She keeps plugging away.”
Mineralogist’s victory in the Saratoga Dew improved career record to 10-4(3)-1-0 and increased her earnings to $223,050. She is the first foal out of Seeking the Ante (Seeking the Gold), a Grade 2-winning Broman homebred also trained by Kimmel ($392,830).
Seeking the Ante’s second foal, three-year-old Risk a Chance by A. P. Indy, has won twice ($60,775) and her third foal is a weanling filly by Medaglia d’Oro. She was bred back to Mineshaft this spring.
