Solid stakes victory for Hot Dixie Chick

PHOTOGRAPHER: Bruce Squiers

Hot Dixie Chick, guided by jockey Robby Albarado, wins Wednesday’s feature race, the Schuylerville, on opening day at the Saratoga Race Course.

Steve Asmussen has a pretty nice filly running on Sunday for owner Jess Jackson, but on Wednesday, Jackson’s wife, Barbara Banke, was in the spotlight with another filly trained by Asmussen.

Banke opened her own operation four months ago under the name Grace Stables LLC, and her silks, with colors right out of an L.L. Bean catalogue, were carried to the winner’s circle by Hot Dixie Chick, a daughter of Dixie Union who kicked off the 141st Saratoga Race Course stakes schedule with a professional victory in the Grade II Schuylerville.

Sent off as the 3-2 favorite, Hot Dixie Chick sat just off pace-setter Songandaprayer on the inside, moved to the outside halfway around the turn under Robby Albarado, in Banke’s cerulean blue and coral pink, and pulled away in the stretch to win by 6 1⁄4 lengths over Beautician, as Songandaprayer dropped back to fourth.

“Oh, yeah, it’s special,” said Banke, who has 10 horses with Grace Stables.

Much of the pre-meet attention has centered around Preakness winner Rachel Alexandra, who has been training at Saratoga and will try the boys again on Sunday in the Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park for Asmussen and Jackson’s Stonestreet Stables.

At Saratoga, meanwhile, Asmussen and Albarado took the Schuylerville under rainy conditions for the second year in a row.

Jardin won it last year at odds of 12-1.

The Schuylerville drew 13 2-year-old fillies this time, with Hot Dixie Chick the 4-1 program favorite off a 53⁄4-length win at Churchill Downs.

Four scratches, including Kentucky Juvenile winner Aegean, left the field at nine on a track listed as “good” about two hours after it started raining intermittently at the track.

Hot Dixie Chick lost her career debut to Decelerator, also entered in the Schuylerville, on a sloppy track at Churchill.

Whatever moisture was in the track on Wednesday wasn’t an issue.

“It’s a good tradition. Hopefully, if we have somebody in it next year and it’s sunny, I’ll go get a hose,” Asmussen joked, as raindrops hit his shoulders.

“I think the track held up pretty well up to this point. We’re getting more rain now and stuff, but we watched the other-than [allowance] that ran right before this, thought that it went well, they all seemed to come back good, so we felt good about it.”

Hot Dixie Chick demonstrated some versatility, in that she led at every call in her previous win.

In the Schuylerville, Albarado let Songandaprayer go through a quarter-mile in 22.02 and a half in 45.50.

“She broke really well, put herself forwardly placed, which I anticipated, and then she rated off those horses nicely,” Albarado said. “She’s a nice filly, very smart.”

“I’m very proud of the race Robby rode on her, under the circumstances of her going straight to the lead and running so fast last time, to have the confidence in her to just let that filly clear, move to the outside and then just ride her as well as he did,” Asmussen said.

Asmussen said the Grade I Spinaway on Sept. 6 is a logical next target. They might see Beautician again in that race, trainer Kenny McPeek said.