Shuvee Victory for Stopchargingmaria

Top class mare Stopchargingmaria (4m Tale of the Cat x Exotic Bloom, by Montbrook) was in top form at Saratoga on Sunday taking out the $200,000 Grade III Shuvee Stakes. A dual Grade I winner last year for the Todd Pletcher stable, Stopchargingmaria was sent to the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky November Breeding Stock Sale last year by her owner Mike Repole, but left the ring unsold when bidding stalled at $3.15 million. A daughter of outstanding sire Tale of the Cat, she was later sold privately to Louise and Kiki Courtelis’s Town and Country Farms, who decided to leave her with Todd Pletcher to race on. A last start winner for her new owners in the Grade III Allaire DuPont Distaff at Saratoga, Stopchargingmaria repeated the effort to surge clear and win this 1 and 1/18th mile feature by a length over the favourite Untapable. “You can see in Stopchargingmaria’s personality that she loves it here at Saratoga,” said Todd Pletcher. “I was impressed that she battled down to the wire with Untapable. Our strategy was that we were going to try to get to the front, and Untapable came in with the same strategy. We knew our filly had been training exceptionally well and have been looking forward to this race. I was very proud of her today.” Stopchargingmaria has the overall record of eight wins and four placings from 14 starts with prizemoney topping $1.7 million and is the first winner for stakes-winner Exotic Bloom, who comes from the family of Grade II winners Vision and Verse and Bourbon Bay.