Alabama Stakes at Saratoga : Fran’s Valentine Can’t Touch Mom’s Command

Peter Fuller, a Golden Gloves boxing champion a long time ago, knows the value of a rematch and would like to give Fran’s Valentine one against Mom’s Command.

Earl Scheib, the nationally known Los Angeles automobile painter who bred and owns Fran’s Valentine, may not want it.

Mom’s Command’s four-length victory over Fran’s Valentine Saturday in the $140,000 Alabama Stakes at Saratoga was methodical and devastating. With the scalp of the West Coast’s best 3-year-old filly added to her belt, Mom’s Command has proven that there isn’t an opponent in the division good enough to test her.

Mom’s Command lost to Lady’s Secret in the Test Stakes here nine days ago, but that was for little more than fun and over only seven furlongs. Mom’s Command’s game is distance, as she showed 31,561 fans who bet her down to 3-5 in the Alabama. In races this year at a mile or farther, Mom’s Command is 5 for 5, with combined winning margins of 19 lengths.

For the Alabama, Scheib’s ice-cream suit might have been something different, even for fashion-conscious Saratoga, but the result supplied by Mom’s Command was much the same. The daughter of Top Command gained an easy early lead with snappy fractions (:46 4/5 for a half-mile and 1:10 4/5 for six furlongs), then held off Fran’s Valentine and Foxy Deen despite a snail-like final quarter of :26 4/5. The winning time of 2:03 1/5 was the slowest for an Alabama since 1978.

Mom’s Command paid $3.20, $2.20 and $2.10, earning $84,000 and increasing her career total to $902,972. Fran’s Valentine’s prices were $2.60 and $2.10, and Foxy Deen, who has been in trainer Wayne Lukas’ barn the last two weeks, paid $2.10. Foxy Deen briefly got in front of Fran’s Valentine in the stretch, then finished 3 1/2 lengths behind her. At the back of the five-horse field were Golden Horde and Raise a Q.

Mom’s Command, who has won seven times and finished second twice in nine starts this year, will get a rest, according to her trainer, Ned Allard. Fuller would like to run Mom’s Command at Rockingham Park, not far from his Boston automobile dealership, in the $100,000 Spicy Living Stakes on Oct. 14. Fuller isn’t keen on paying $120,000 to supplement Mom’s Command to a $1-million Breeders’ Cup race at Aqueduct on Nov. 2, but she really doesn’t need that race to be considered for the divisional title. She already has enough credits on her resume.

“I’m going to call Earl Scheib next week and tell him he’s invited to come to Rockingham,” Fuller said Saturday. Earlier, Fuller had wanted a match race against Fran’s Valentine, but Scheib declined.

Except for the intervention by Foxy Deen, the Alabama was practically a match race. Rider Abby Fuller, the owner’s daughter, broke Mom’s Command on top, and there was nobody to run with her but Fran’s Valentine, who came into the race with strong wins in the Kentucky Oaks and the Hollywood Oaks.

“I was in a perfect position going into the first turn,” said Chris McCarron, who rode Fran’s Valentine. “My filly was nice and relaxed. But she wasn’t good enough at any point in the race to go get the other filly.”

At the half-mile pole, McCarron said he chirped to Fran’s Valentine, and she increased her stride. “But she still wasn’t making up any ground,” the jockey added. “In the stretch, when I went to the whip, she accelerated again; still she wasn’t closing the gap.”

McCarron thought that Fran’s Valentine might have tired in the final sixteenth of a mile. “Mom’s Command had two advantages on us,” McCarron said. “She had a race over the track and she’s more used to the humidity here than my filly.”

Joe Manzi, who trains Fran’s Valentine, had told Allard before the race that the West Coast filly might be closer to Mom’s Command than she has been to the leaders in most of her races. That didn’t materialize, however.

“My filly has too much speed going long,” Allard said. “She has great speed going long, which is most unusual in a horse.”

Not that unusual if the horse is the real thing.

“The good horses can do it, show the early speed and have enough left in the end,” McCarron said. “In recent years, Precisionist and Lord at War have been a couple that have done it. And Mom’s Command is definitely a good horse.”

Although Abby Fuller has ridden Mom’s Command in all but two of her 16 lifetime starts, she still seems surprised every time her father’s horse wins as she did in the Alabama. “She perked her ears up for me,” the 26-year-old jockey said. “It just looked like she was galloping in the early part. I only hit her a couple of times coming down the line, and she had no problem holding the lead.”

Peter Fuller didn’t see Foxy Deen make that quick burst at the top of the stretch. “If I had,” Fuller said, “my old ticker might have given out.”