The Mother Goose: Now and Then

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June 23, 2012 2:32 PM

Photo: NYRA/Adam Conglianese

The Mother Goose is a race that had two great record setting performances in 1975 and 2009. Let’s take a look at this year’s Mother Goose results and then go back in history and enjoy the amazing races of Ruffian and Rachel Alexandra.

The 2012 Mother Goose appeared to be a black and white kind of race that was easy to figure with Bob Baffert’s Contested going off as a heavy 1-2 favorite and Larry Jones’s Believe You Can a very solid 5-2 second choice. However the result was nothing but grey, as the grey filly Zo Impressive battled another grey Disposablepleasure down to the wire.

Zo Impressive won the battle of the greys by three quarters of a length to pay $14.60, $6.60, $10.00 as the heavy show bettors took a beating. Zo Impressive took down her first stakes victory in the $300,000 Mother Goose (G1). Tom Albertrani, who trained the Hard Spun filly for Live Oak Plantation, said after the race, “Going into the race, she was very sharp. I loved the draw for her being on the outside. We wanted to be in a position where we could eyeball Contested and everything worked out just the way we expected it to.” Albertrani added that they would head to Saratoga and consider the Coaching Club American Oaks (G1) on July 21^st.

Jockey Rajiv Rajiv Maragh described the race, “It was a good run going to the three eighths pole so I think I had horse left. Once I could hold her (Disposablepleasure) off at the eighth pole I felt like I was going to keep on going.”

The 1975 Mother Goose was contested at Aqueduct and featured Ruffian who was going for her ninth victory in her first nine career starts. It would turn out to be just another one of Ruffian’s dominating performances. She would beat the field of seven by a record 13 and a half lengths in a stakes record time of 1:47-4.

The 2009 Mother Goose featured Rachel Alexandra and only had a field of three horses in what was to be the last time that the race would be run at a mile and an eighth. After the other two horses set some dazzling early fractions of :22-2 and :44-3 Rachel Alexandra pounced and took the lead. Belmont racecaller Tom Durkin was beside himself with excitement as he described Rachel as, “Pouring it on in a dazzling display”. At the wire Rachel had opened a 19¼ length margin which broke Ruffian’s record margin and she set a stakes record time of 1:46.33.

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The Mother Goose: Now an...

kay, cutting distances is the way things are in racing now. I am not a big fan of the cuts. Since 2003 the CCA Oaks was been reduced from 12 furlongs to 10F and is now 9F. Graded status rests more on the level of competition in a race than a change in distance.