BELDAME STAKES (GRADE 1)

JOSÉ Ortiz eyes lit up when asked about his first time.

“I thought, ‘I hit the jackpot’,” said Ortiz about the first time he worked Elate for Bill Mott.

Well, the jackpot is still cranking as Elate won her second consecutive Grade 1 stakes, crushing six foes in the Beldame at Belmont Park last Saturday. Ortiz sat like a hood ornament through the procession, allowing Elate to draw off by eight and a quarter lengths over Money’soncharlotte and Eskenformoney.

“I know her since before she ran. When she was a two-year-old, I got on her, I breezed her from the gate, and since that moment, I thought she was special,” Ortiz said. “She let me down a little bit but now she’s coming along.”

Elate won her debut back in November, then lost four in a row, including when Ortiz eased her after she took a misstep in the Grade 1 Ashland in April. Found to be fine after the race, she returned to lose an allowance race as the favourite, then won a minor stakes at a minor venue with jockey Feargal Lynch.

Ortiz climbed back aboard and they missed by a head in the Coaching Club American Oaks at Saratoga. In her next start, Elate dominated the Grade 1 Alabama against three-year-old fillies, then clicked off the Beldame against older fillies and mares and now Elate’s ticket is punched and booked for the Breeders’ Cup Distaff on November 4th.

Bred and owned by Claiborne Farm and Adele Dilschneider, the long-striding daughter of Medaglia D’Oro proved yet again that when given a target, Mott doesn’t miss.

“At the beginning of the year, everybody was thinking Kentucky Oaks, I thought, ‘You know what, she’s really more of an Alabama filly than the Kentucky Oaks’,” Mott said. “She’s got the pedigree, she’s big and strong, she’s beautiful, she keeps getting better and better, you can still tell she’s a little bit of a late developer.”

As for Ortiz, he’s still smitten: “I feel very high on her since the first day,” Ortiz said. “I loved her then and I still love her.”