Page 4 - Leaf Mel News Today

Three reigning Breeders' Cup winners are set to run Saturday at Saratoga, with contenders for this year's Cup racing from coast to coast this weekend.

Trainer Melanie Giddings celebrated the first stakes win of her career Saturday with August Dawn Farm’s Maple Leaf Mel, who was named for her trainer during her tenure as an assistant trainer to the filly’s original conditioner Jeremiah Englehart.

August Dawn Farm’s Maple Leaf Mel remained perfect through five career starts with a powerful gate-to-wire effort to provide her namesake trainer, Melanie Giddings, her first career stakes win in Saturday’s $175,000 Victory Ride (G3), a 6 1/2-furlong sprint for sophomore fillies, at Belmont Park.

Dave Tuley and his handiccapping friends look for value plays at horse racing tracks from coast to coast.

Undefeated Maple Leaf Mel makes her first start for her namesake, trainer Melanie Giddings, in Saturday's Victory Ride at Belmont Park.

Melanie Giddings, the namesake of undefeated graded stakes winner Maple Leaf Mel, has taken over training duties of the likely favorite

The month of May brings with it a pair of weekends featuring a bunch of graded stakes races, surrounding the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, and the sires that gave us the winners of those races look the same as the ones from the first four months of the year.

Maple Leaf Mel kept her record perfect on May 19 with a win in her graded stakes debut, taking the Grade 3 Miss Preakness at Pimlico decisively under jockey Joel Rosario.

NFL coaching legend Bill Parcells has high hopes for the New York-bred filly Maple Leaf Mel after her third win without defeat.

The racehorse Maple Leaf Mel is a tribute to the courage and dedication of Melanie Giddings, assistant to Jeremiah Englehart