August 14, 2005
On Saturday, Saratoga Race Course hosted two important graded stakes events. The highlight of the afternoon was the Grade 1 Sword Dancer Invitational at 1 1/2 miles over the inner turf course. With the defection of 2004 Breeders' Cup Turf winner and defending champion Better Talk Now to the Arlington Million, this event was left to two Irish-breds to battle it out.
5-2 favorite King's Drama and 3-1 second choice Relaxed Gesture battled on the front end the whole way, through a half in 48.68 and a mile in 1:38.89. The battle continued through the lane, with King's Drama prevailing by 3/4 length at the line in a time of 2:27.38 over the firm course.
"I think (owner Gary Tanaka) was more concerned than I was going 1 1/2 because of his race in Canada," Frankel said of King's Drama's fifth-place finish at Woodbine in last fall's Canadian International. "I was confident that he could go that far because he had been training well into the race and it showed here. I was surprised when I saw that King's Drama didn't get the lead immediately. I was wondering when Jorge (Chavez) was going to take the lead, but obviously he knew what he was doing because he won the race."
Winning jockey Jorge Chavez said, "Today, I won the big race. I'm very happy. My horse was kind of going with that other horse (Relaxed Gesture), I thought I would be by myself. I really wanted to wait until the last 100 yards, and that's what I did. I knew someone was coming. Thank God he was ready."
On the undercard, Michael Tabor's and Derrick Smith's Pomeroy was not an easy horse to load into the starting gate for the Grade 2, $200,000 Alfred G. Vanderbilt. In fact, the four-year-old Boundary colt kicked several times to make sure no one was behind him and jockey Eibar Coa had to dismount in order for the starters to do their job. But once the gates opened, Pomeroy went straight to work, dueling early with I'm the Tiger but holding the lead the whole way around through fractions of 21.66 and 43.85, then dismissing him and five others as he set hot fractions to win the six-furlong sprint by four lengths in 1:08.69.
"He ran big today," winning jockey Coa said. "He really wanted to run. He felt great under me. I wanted to keep him happy, so I let him go and never did anything against his wishes. He just showed up today. All the other horses were speed horses as well, so I wanted them to chase him and let the best horse win."
