War Like Goddess Looks for Three-Peat

The career resume would tell you that War Like Goddess  loves everything about Saratoga Race Course.

The 6-year-old mare, owned by George Krikorian, has done nothing but good at the Spa.

Check out these states: four starts at Saratoga. Three wins, one second.

Two of the three wins came in back-to-back years of the Glens Falls Stakes (G2T), which is worth $250,000 and will be run Aug. 3 at a mile and a half. The race, on the Spa’s Inner Turf course, is for fillies and mares aged four and up.

War Like Goddess, as consistent a mare as you will see, is looking for the three-peat.

Her Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott sort of chuckled when asked about the idea of War Like Goddess having such a harmony with the Spa.

“It’s good to see she has won here before, but she has won at a lot of other places,” Mott said while sitting in a golf cart outside his barn on the Oklahoma Training Track. “And she has run well at a lot of other places.”

True. War Like Goddess has three wins in four starts at Keeneland.

She is undefeated in two starts at Churchill Downs.

At Gulfstream Park, War Like Goddess has a win in two starts.

Thirteen of her 15 career starts have been in graded stakes races, five of them grade 1s. War Like Goddess has been favored in 10 of her last 11 starts and won seven of them.

It appears that War Like Goddess, a daughter of English Channel , is at her best when she is running the 1 1/2-mile distance.

She has tried it seven times and won six. In her last start, the New York Stakes (G1T) at Belmont Park, War Like Goddess finished sixth, but beaten just 2 3/4 lengths. That race was contested at 1 1/4 miles, which is out of her comfort zone.

“I don’t think that is her distance,” said Mott, who has won the Glens Falls a record seven times, five in the last eight years. “I don’t think the pace scenario helped her. The horse on the lead (Marketsegmentation ) went all the way and there was nothing that challenged that horse to make more pace. I tend to believe (War Like Goddess) was a little flat that day.”

Also entered in the Glens Falls are two from the barn of Chad Brown: Klaravich Stables’ McKulick  and Peter Brant’s Virginia Joy .

McKulick, a 4-year-old daughter of Frankel, has hit the board in nine of her 10 career starts with three wins. Included on that list are wins in the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup Stakes (G1T) at Keeneland last October and the Belmont Oaks Invitational (G1T) at Belmont last July. She will be ridden by Irad Ortiz, Jr.

The 6-year-old mare Virginia Joy, by Soldier Hollow , will be making her 19th career start. She finished third in last year’s Glens Falls and then came back to beat War Like Goddess by a neck in the Flower Bowl Stakes (G2T). Flavien Prat will be aboard.

Two horses from the barn of Graham Motion will also contest the Glens Falls. They are Sopran Basilea , owned by Madaket Stables, LLC and Bill Strauss and Gary Broad’s Vergara .

The 5-year-old mare Sopran Basilea, who will be ridden by Manny Franco, won the Robert G. Dick Memorial Stakes (G3T) at Delaware Park in her last start and has six wins, six seconds and a third in 17 turf tries, all but two of those races in Italy. The daughter of Night of Thunder  came to Motion’s barn earlier this year and began her U.S. campaign with a second place finish in the Gallorette Stakes (G3T) on Preakness Day at Pimlico Race Course May 20.

Vergara has hit the board in eight of 10 career starts on grass and will be trying the 1 1/2-mile distance for the first time, as will her stablemate. Vergara, who will be ridden by John Velazquez for the first time, set the pace in the Eatontown Stakes (G3T) at Monmouth Park June 17 but ended up third, beaten just three quarters of a length.

Trainer Christophe Clement will saddle Moyglare Stud Farm’s Amazing Grace  and the 5-year-old mare will be ridden by Tyler Gaffalione. Amazing Grace won the Orchid Stakes (G3T) at Gulfstream Park April 23 at the Glens Falls distance and has won two of three at a mile and a half.

Elegant Taste , owned by Janet Quaintance and trained by Lawrence Smith, ships to Saratoga after winning three straight claiming races at Penn National, Delaware Park and Presque Isle Downs. The 4-year-old filly has never run on the grass. Jackie Davis is listed to ride.