Stopchargingmaria rings up another Grade 1 win in Alabama

Repole Stable's Stopchargingmaria continued racking up the wins on Saturday

at Saratoga when

taking the Grade 1, $600,000

Alabama

by three parts of a length under jockey John Velazquez.

The Todd Pletcher trainee, who is jokingly named after owner Mike Repole's

wife, was exiting a five-length triumph in her first Grade 1 victory, the

Coaching Club American Oaks, which followed a neck score in the Black-Eyed Susan

in May. The $360,000 winner's share from the Alabama bumped her lifetime

earnings to $1,414,000 and she now boasts a 10-6-1-1 career line.

"She's in the mix (for championship honors) now. We've got

to keep winning," Pletcher said in regards to Stopchargingmaria's next race. "I'm not sure the

(Grade 1, $1 million) Cotillion (at Parx Racing on September 20) is the

race we'll choose. Maybe we'll go to the (Grade 1, $400,000) Beldame (on September 27 at Belmont Park).

We'll just have to see how she comes out of this. It probably will be one of

those."

"She's just been training so good. Todd has done an amazing job. She

won with Javier (Castellano), she's won with Johnny (Velazquez). She's just a

special filly getting better and better and better," Repole praised his filly.

"As a kid in Queens I could never afford to get up here. I

never had a car that could go three hours. I've always watched the big races,"

he added.

"For someone that's only been in the game for about 10 years and only really five

years with some quality horses, you want to win the Jim Dandy. You want to win

the Travers. You want to win the Coaching Club. You want to win

the Alabama.

Stopchargingmaria was hot on Miss Besliu's hooves and had just wrested

control away when a new threat emerged from Joint Return. The Include filly ran

in the back for much of the race before coming with a game rally to threaten,

but just couldn't get to Stopchargingmaria before she crossed under the wire in

a final time of 2:05 for 1 1/4 miles on the fast dirt. The winner returned $4 to

her faithful backers.

"She was a little bit keen the first part of the race. Today I was

actually taking her back, trying to get her to relax behind other horses,"

Velasquez explained.

"Finally, past the half-mile pole I gave her her head and let her hit her stride.

"All of a sudden the horse on the lead started getting out, and somebody else got

through on the rail -- I was pretty mad about it -- but she showed up and put up a

good fight. Every time I asked her for a little bit more, she was giving it to

me."

"In a perfect world, maybe, we wouldn't have been quite so wide around the

first turn," Pletcher said. "We just wanted to make sure we got her into a

comfortable rhythm. We were willing to give up a little bit of ground to do

that. It really worked out pretty well.

"We had to give up some ground all the way around there,

and when (Miss Besilu) cut the corner it was like, 'Uh oh,' but she had plenty

of time to see her and compete with her."

"I (had) toyed with the idea of

putting blinkers on her, but she'd been running so doggone good. You know,

you're almost afraid to mess up, but after the Delaware race I said, 'That's

it,' and I put blinkers on her (for the Alabama). (Carmouche) went from having to ride her the whole way to

sitting on her until he called on her, and she ran real well.

"I thought she'd

love the mile and a quarter, and how many chances do you get at a Grade 1? She

trained very aggressively with the blinkers, but you never really know until you

run in them. When they came by here the first time, I knew. When she put herself

in the race, I said, 'All right. Now we're good'."

Stopchargingmaria is now a five-time graded winner. In addition to the

aforementioned CCA Oaks and Black-Eyed Susan, the Alabama joins a pair of

victories in the Demoiselle and Tempted from her juvenile campaign at

Aqueduct on the

filly's resume. She also placed in both the Spinaway and Frizette as a

two-year-old in New York, and her only off-the-board runs came earlier this

season when fifth in the Davona Dale at

Gulfstream Park and

fourth in the Fantasy at

Oaklawn Park.

"Something happened between being in New York, and going

back to Florida," Repole remarked. "She had two races that were not typical, in

March and April. She came back in May, trained up here and won the Black-Eyed

Susan. The Coaching Club was even better, and this might be her best race ever.