Madam Giry is Smart and Fancy

Picking up her first win of the season, but third in four lifetime starts at Saratoga, Maryland-bred Madam Giry shook off some early trouble coming out of the gate and then kept to the task to take the $100,000 Smart and Fancy Stakes. It was her fourth stakes try of the season, during which she made steady progress running fifth, fourth, third and then finally getting the win today in the 5 ½ furlong turf event at the upstate New York track.

A slow start to four-year-old season

Sired by the Irish runner Castledale, the four-year-old filly started her career at Gulfstream Park but broke her maiden last July at Belmont. That started a string of five consecutive wins for Madam Giry, with two of those coming at Saratoga, including the 2012 version of the Smart and Fancy. She also won the Buffalo Trace Franklin County Stakes at Keeneland last year, before finishing her three-year-old season with a runner up placing in an allowance event at Gulfstream. She started this season with a fifth in the Lightning City Stakes at Tampa Bay.

Bounces back from dull previous effort

She returned to Saratoga early this month for the Sportech Caress Stakes where she ran evenly to hold on for third after drifting out a bit in the stretch. In the Smart and Fancy, however, she was all business, shaking off getting brushed coming out of the gate, settling into mid-pack for the run to the turn, and then getting just in front at the top of the stretch before pulling away to win by 1 ¼ lengths in a full drive to record her sixth win in 14 lifetime starts, to go with two seconds and a third, and earnings of more than $350,000.