SARATOGA SPRINGS — There’s not much you can buy for 10 cents these days, except at the racetrack, where you can bet a superfecta for a dime. And if you were lucky enough to have wagered 10 cents on the winning super in yesterday’s eighth race at Saratoga, the Grade 2, $150,000 Lake George Stakes, you would have collected $15,150.70!
The first four finishers — Perfect Shirl, Exclusive Love, No Explaining and Khancord Kid — went off at odds of 9-1, 57-1, 16-1 and 27-1, respectively, in the mile-and-a-sixteenth race for 3-year-old fillies over the inner turf.
Another longshot, 36-1 Go Ask Alex, cut out the pace, pressed by 3-1 favorite Strike It Rich along the rail, through quick splits of :23.65, :47.76 and 1:11.75. Strike It Rich clawed to the front turning for home, then backed up badly to finish last of 12 in the full field.
The battle down the stretch looked like the chariot race in “Ben Hur.” Exclusive Love, making her first stakes appearance, led with a furlong to run, but Perfect Shirl, ridden by John Velazquez for Roger Attfield, wore her down to win by three-quarters of a length. The nine fillies behind Perfect Shirl were separated by a half, a half, a neck, a nose, a neck, three-quarters, three-quarters and a head.
Trainer Christophe Clement, commenting on the puzzling effort by Strike It Rich after she had won three straight, said, “I used to have an Irish friend who would say, ‘She lost her way.’ That’s my explanation.”