GIVING Bill Mott a good horse is like handing an ice cream cone to a kid. Just sit back and watch what happens.

The Hall of Famer did it again, putting Elate on a long, slow programme to the Grade 1 Alabama earlier this month.

The long-striding daughter of Medaglia d’Oro picked up her first Grade 1 stakes with a flawless performance in the 10-furlong stakes for three-year-old fillies.

Owned and bred by Claiborne Farm and Adele Dilschneider, Elate did what Mott had anticipated, all the way back when she was an unraced two-year-old.

“I told the Claiborne guys ‘get your coat and tie’ when she was a two-year-old in the summer. She had sore shins, so she missed Saratoga and I didn’t get her started until the end of November.

“We weren’t surprised. It was maybe a resemblance of Royal Delta breaking her maiden,” Mott said.

“Everybody was thinking ‘Kentucky Oaks’ but she just wasn’t there, there was nothing I was going to do to make her come around any quicker.

“This spring I thought, ‘Well, if we do it right, we’ll get her to the Alabama.’ Which we did.”

WITH EASE

Did they ever. Ridden by Saratoga’s leading Jose Ortiz, Elate loped behind a phalanx of horses, rolled to the lead on the turn and was the only filly running on at the end as she pasted a five and a half length margin on It Tiz Well.

“She’s got the pedigree, she’s big and strong, she’s beautiful, she keeps getting better and better,” Mott said.

“You can still tell she’s a little bit of a late developer, nothing we did different, there’s no magic to it, it’s just a matter of allowing them to get there on their own.”