It was nearly a year ago that Lee Einsidler sat with his longtime friend Bill Parcells and watched the Super Bowl-winning coach’s 2-year-old filly Maple Leaf Mel win the Seeking the Ante Stakes for New York State breds.
“I told Bill that day that she was going to win the Test Stakes next year,” Einsidler said about the prestigious grade 1 sprint for 3-year-old fillies at Saratoga Race Course. “He said, ‘What? Don’t get ahead of yourself.”‘
After the unbeaten filly named for then assistant trainer and cancer survivor Melanie Giddings started her 3-year-old campaign with a win in the East View Stakes for state-breds, Einsidler repeated those words to Parcells.
Just as he did after she improved to 5-for-5 by winning the Miss Preakness Stakes (G3) and then, after Giddings opened her own stable and Parcells moved the filly from original trainer Jeremiah Englehart to Giddens, the July 8 Victory Ride Stakes (G3).
“We talked all winter and I kept telling Bill she was going to win the Test,” Einsidler said.
Those words were foremost on Einsidler’s mind Aug. 5 at the sixteenth pole of the Test when the August Dawn Farm filly was in front by a few lengths and seemed a sure winner.
“At the sixteenth pole, we were all hugging and kissing and celebrating and then two seconds later 45,000 people were crying,” Einsidler said.
In a tragic and horrid scene that sapped all of the life out of the jammed racetrack, Maple Leaf Mel suffered a fatal breakdown in the shadow of the finish line when she broke her right front leg.
As Giddens stood on the racetrack and wept over a scene unfolding some 30 yards away, it was Einsidler who embraced her and did his best to console her.
“Bill had his three daughters and all their kids with them and he was trying to care for them. Melanie was crying her eyes out so I tried to console her the best I could. The horse meant the world to her. The filly helped her get back her health. It was an incredible story that unfortunately had a tragic ending for the filly. It was Go For Wand and Ruffian all over again.”
For Einsidler, the CEO of the popular Casamigos tequila brand, the violent swing of emotions in an instant was something that left him devastated.
“It was as heart-breaking as you could imagine. It was a moment a year in the making. From the high of thinking you had a horse good enough to run in the Test and win the Test and then to have all that taken away one jump from the wire is tragic and stunning. There are no words to describe what that filly meant to Bill and Melanie. It was such a tragedy,” said Einsidler, who races under the LRE Racing banner and is a co-owner of the multiple-grade 1 winner Casa Creed . “She had the race won and you can’t imagine how or why that happened.”
