It didn't make up for the trainer's loss Saturday but the ill-fated filly Maple Leaf Mel received a touching, day-after send-off at Saratoga in upstate New York.
Brendan Walsh, winning trainer in the Grade 1 race Saturday, brought the ceremonial flower blanket to trainer Melanie Giddings' barn. Maple Leaf Mel, 2-1 race favorite, was euthanized after breaking down before the wire going seven furlongs in the $500,000 Test Stakes for 3-year-old fillies.
Pretty Mischievous notched her third consecutive G1 victory for Walsh, following wins in the Kentucky Oaks and Acorn, even if Blood-Horse correspondent Sean Clancy said the site "made you turn away."
Maple Leaf Mel snapped her right front leg just as it appeared she would remain undefeated in besting six rivals. Winning jockey Tyler Gaffalione pulled off his tack in an empty spot in front of the winner's circle while Walsh stared into oblivion.
"I don't know what to say. I don't think words can describe it. It feels like nothing." Walsh said. "I feel just terrible for them. For the filly. A champion like her, the way she ran. Nobody wants to win a race like that."
Hall of Fame football coach Bill Parcells paid $150,000 for the filly as a 2-year-old and named Cross Traffic's daughter after Giddings, a longtime assistant to trainer Jeremiah Englehart. Giddings was diagnosed in 2020 with Stage 4 ovarian and endocervical cancer, which has since gone into remission.
The filly won her first four starts, scoring in the Grade 3 Miss Preakness at Pimlico in May.
Champion filly Go for Wand, trained by Billy Badgett, broke down in the 1990 Breeders' Cup Distaff at New York's Belmont Park while dueling fellow champion Bayakoa in the stretch. The Grade 1 Maskette Stakes was renamed the Go for Wand Handicap in her memory.