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COMMENTARY DECEMBER 12, 2008 Farewell my Ladies by Vance Hanson For the 138th and final time, the Ladies H. will be presented at Aqueduct on Sunday, thus closing the book on one of the country's oldest races and the matriarch of all stakes restricted to fillies and mares. Only four times since 1868 has a year passed without the Ladies being run and only a handful of stakes can lay claim to being renewed more often. I harbor no illusions that the number of those mourning its impending demise, a decision reached by the New York Racing Association last week with the announcement of its 2009 stakes schedule, is great. The historically inclined within our sport, though passionate, constitute a dwindling minority of its patrons. But even I would be willing to wager a deuce that the number of those who support the continued existence of the Ladies might exceed Aqueduct's paid attendance this weekend. As can be expected of any race of such longevity, a list of Ladies winners is a veritable Who's Who of the American turf. When looking at its roster one can't help but notice how many Ladies winners subsequently had races named in their honor: Miss Woodford, Firenze, Beldame, Maskette, Top Flight, Vagrancy, Athenia, Snow Goose, Next Move, Flower Bowl, Rare Treat, Endine, Tempted, Berlo, Straight Deal, Politely and Shuvee. One also can't escape the irony that many of the races that now bear their names will soon outlive one that helped bring them fame and notoriety in the first place. The death of the Ladies is not really a surprise. It long ago ceased to be a championship quality event and has been withering on the vine for the better part of two decades. After being stripped of its Grade 1 status in 1990, NYRA lost interest in trying to rehabilitate it, a not uncommon move by the organization when the popularity of one its long-standing fixtures begins to recede. With further demotion by the American Graded Stakes Committee in recent years and its banishment to Aqueduct's inner track season, the Ladies' days have been numbered for some time. What happened? The usual suspects of competition and money are to blame, and to a lesser extent distance. The Ladies was one of numerous races hurt by the advent of the Breeders' Cup in 1984, especially so given its traditional positioning in mid- to late November. As its popularity waned due to its scheduling, so did the amount NYRA was willing to invest in sustaining it as a noteworthy event. And at 1 1/4 miles, the Ladies was always one of the longer main track races of its kind and became somewhat of an anachronism at a time when leading fillies are mares were rarely asked to run beyond nine furlongs. All those reasons aside, the demise of the Ladies was far from inevitable. As one of its oldest properties, NYRA could have provided better stewardship by insulating the race from the effects of competition. As many of New York's fixtures have bounced between tracks for more than a century, a date and/or location switch would not have caused great harm, while allocating more financial resources was always doable in order to make it more attractive. As for the concerns about its distance, they don't seem quite as thorny while races like the Delaware H. (G2), Personal Ensign S. (G1), Coaching Club American Oaks (G1) and Alabama S. (G1) remain alive and kicking. When asked by Daily Racing Form about the expiration of the Ladies, NYRA Racing Secretary P.J. Campo noted that "filly and mare races are a dime a dozen now, especially going long." While the truthfulness of that statement is not questioned, it does overlook NYRA's complicity in making it so. Within the last four decades, NYRA has added to its schedule the Shuvee H. (G2), Ogden Phipps H. (G1) (originally the Hempstead) and Ruffian H. (G1), not to mention numerous others created especially for Aqueduct's inner track meet. It should come as no surprise, then, how little room the Ladies had to maneuver in an already bloated NYRA stakes schedule. In a more enlightened era, NYRA's leading races for fillies and mares beyond a mile on dirt consisted of the Top Flight H. (G2), Diana S. (G1), Beldame S. (G1), Ladies and Firenze H. (now the Personal Ensign). That left plenty of room on the calendar for other tracks in the region to showcase the distaff set in races such as the Molly Pitcher H. (G2), Delaware H., Vineland H. and Matchmaker S. (G3). We now have too many races compressed into too short a time chasing too few horses, a problem not exclusive to the filly and mare division. As long as a surplus of races in the division exists, finding a solution to best preserve a race like the Ladies is difficult. One could make the argument that the Ladies has proven to be the one most worthy of contraction, and perhaps her time has indeed passed. However, her caretakers never really showed an inclination to fight on her behalf, allowing her to languish in a spot where extinction was only a matter of time. Ideally, a race like the Ladies, with nearly a century more history than some of her NYRA contemporaries, would have been given preference over a relatively newer model. If allowed to make a fast call, I would have moved the Ruffian H., which commemorates a filly that never ran at the Belmont fall meet, to the spring to replace the Shuvee, then moved the Go for Wand from Saratoga to replace the Ogden Phipps (do we really need two divisional races at Saratoga?). Sliding the Beldame into the Ruffian's old slot, we would have had room for the Ladies to re-claim its position as one of the most sought after prizes of the fall season. Forsaking the opportunity to publicly redesign the rest of the NYRA stakes schedule to suit my fancy, and avoiding stepping on any more toes (admirers of Shuvee and Ogden Phipps, feel free to cast the proverbial first stones), the intent here is to draw attention to an event that most likely would have passed with little notice or fanfare against the backdrop of an otherwise dreary December landscape. Another part of the sport's history is about to slip away, perhaps only temporarily, but more likely for good. That is not welcome news for a sport in the midst of a serious identity crisis, something a little continuity might in part help solve.
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