Whereas the undefeated Maple Leaf Mel is devouring her post-training feed on a steamy July morning on the Saratoga backstretch, her proprietor, Invoice Parcells, peppers his coach, Melanie Giddings, with questions on his a number of stakes-winning filly. As a part of the dialog, the 81-year-old Parcells advises Giddings, “Don’t eat the cheese!”

It’s an expression the Professional Soccer Corridor of Famer used with gamers throughout his 19 seasons as the top coach of 4 NFL franchises, together with the New York Giants, whom he led to 2 Tremendous Bowl titles in 1987 and 1991. It was delivered then to his gamers as a reminder to keep away from getting caught up in studying concerning the workforce’s successes for worry it will intervene with their deal with the sector.

Whether or not Parcells is merely ribbing Giddings or genuinely means for her to not turn out to be distracted by the eye Maple Leaf Mel is bringing her is debatable. However Giddings accepts the remark with good humor and cheekily replies she’s going to get some wine to accompany the cheese, and Parcells cracks a smile. This easygoing banter between the 2 speaks to their snug relationship, constructed on a basis of mutual admiration.

“He all the time tells me that I’m like his daughter now,” Giddings mentioned. “He’ll ask, ‘Are you content? I wish to ensure you’re completely happy.’ He’s a very good man and all the time desires the most effective for lots of people.”

Happiness is on the heart of this story for a lot of causes. Though simply 9 months into her coaching profession, Giddings, 39, and her filly have already got offered a feel-good story with a Hollywood film’s trappings. The lead actress is the 5-for-5 Maple Leaf Mel, a four-time stakes winner now dealing with her sternest problem but within the Aug. 5 Take a look at Stakes at Saratoga. The New York-bred 3-year-old filly is already 2-for-2 on the upstate New York monitor after breaking her maiden on debut and profitable the Searching for the Ante Stakes in 2022.

Parcells named the sturdy-looking grey after Giddings, who confronted a grim analysis just some years in the past with advanced-stage most cancers of her ovaries and uterus. A number of rounds of chemotherapy and radiation adopted surgical procedure. Throughout and within the wake of the remedies, Giddings had a tough go as her physique reeled from the toll of all of it.

The now-healthy Giddings has solely been the official coach of report for Maple Leaf Mel for one of many filly’s 5 wins, the July 8 Victory Trip Stakes, the place the filly ran a monstrous race and powered to a 2 ½-length frontrunning rating at Belmont Park. However Giddings labored day by day with the fleet-footed daughter of Cross Site visitors from the time she entered coach Jeremiah Englehart’s barn within the spring of 2022.

Giddings, who beforehand labored for Corridor of Fame trainers Steve Asmussen and Mark Casse, amongst others, and was a jockey for 3 years in her native Canada from 2007-09, was an assistant for Englehart. It was Englehart who helped select the filly for Parcells on the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-12 months-Olds in Coaching Sale, the place she was bought for $150,000 from the consignment of Robert Brewer, after which guided Maple Leaf Mel to her first 4 victories. When Giddings went out on her personal final fall, she maintained a reference to the filly and taken care of her for Englehart this winter in Florida.

With Giddings starting to develop her personal small steady, which at present numbers eight, Parcells, who was impressed by the hard-working and succesful horsewoman’s relationship with the high-spirited filly whereas in Englehart’s shedrow, needed to present her a leg up in her new profession. Maple Leaf Mel formally moved into Giddings’ care after the filly received the Could 19 Miss Preakness Stakes Offered by Case Tractor at Pimlico Race Course.

“She clearly has capability, however, actually and really, her coronary heart is simply so massive,” mentioned Giddings, who notched her third profession win within the Victory Trip after gaining her first two victories as a coach June 21 at Presque Isle Downs. “She thrives on working. She simply can’t get sufficient. After she runs, she’s simply filled with herself. I suppose she’s pleased with herself. I don’t suppose we give horses sufficient credit score for realizing whether or not they win or don’t win. I wish to suppose she is aware of what’s occurring.”

It’s not misplaced on Giddings that the stakes are excessive as she prepares Maple Leaf Mel for the Take a look at, the nation’s solely Grade 1 on the filth at seven furlongs for sophomore fillies and a race that dates again to 1922. Two of its winners previously 4 years, Covfefe and Gamine, went on to win the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Dash and had been acknowledged with Eclipse Awards at season’s finish. Gamine, like Maple Leaf Mel, was undefeated going into the 2020 Take a look at.

Whereas Giddings actually would like to get this primary Grade 1 taken care of early in her profession, she additionally is aware of it will be extremely significant for Parcells, whose nom de course is August Daybreak Farm. He has been an proprietor for many years, along with his program centering prominently on shopping for New York-breds at public sale, however he has by no means received a Grade 1. He has, nonetheless, campaigned quite a few stakes winners, together with Saratoga Snacks , Play Motion Move, Hit It As soon as Extra, and Forty Beneath, his solely different graded winner till Maple Leaf Mel got here alongside.

His curiosity in racing was first piqued when his father introduced him to Monmouth Park as a young person. Later, within the early Nineteen Nineties, Parcells started to dabble in horse possession. At the moment, he owns 10 horses, some in coaching on the monitor and youthful ones nonetheless on the farm. For a lot of the yr, Parcells lives in Saratoga, his most well-liked location, and in the course of the racing season he attends the races practically day by day. He hardly ever misses a morning of coaching.

“I like being within the horse enterprise. I’m going to be 82 (Aug. 22) and once I rise up within the morning, I’ve one thing that pursuits me and that I take pleasure in,” Parcells mentioned. “I feel that’s essential for an individual my age.

“You additionally expertise a number of the heartache that goes with (being an proprietor) and the expense that goes with it. However to me it’s price it as a result of I’ve met lots of people, new buddies that I’d have by no means had.

“It’s identical to soccer in some respects. You’ve obtained these athletes right here. They’re challenged on a excessive degree and also you’re simply anxious to see them compete, notably when you’ve got one you suppose would possibly do one thing and that’s the case with Maple Leaf Mel. You already know, she’s undefeated, and also you don’t see that too usually. Thus far she’s handed each take a look at, however there’s all the time one other take a look at; actually we’ve got one arising.”

Parcells’ identical depth for the gridiron is a part of his mindset as an proprietor. Whereas racing offers an outlet for his enjoyment, it’s not only a lark.

“(Profitable) is similar feeling as soccer and (dropping), the identical disappointment,” mentioned Parcells, who received his first race of the present Saratoga meet July 23 with the George Weaver-trained Three Ladies who was claimed out of the maiden race. “I had two infants that ran within the final two or three weeks, and each ran (poorly). It makes you are feeling like a failure. What did I see in these horses? If we don’t see some enchancment, what did I do mistaken? We’ll see what occurs; it’s a must to be affected person with younger horses and it’s a must to give them ample alternative, however that doesn’t final perpetually, both.”

Additionally a part of the Maple Leaf Mel workforce is jockey Shaun Bridgmohan. Though Joel Rosario has ridden the filly in all her races, Bridgmohan, the 1998 Eclipse Award-winning apprentice who has greater than 3,300 profession victories in his pocket, companions along with her within the mornings.

“It’s important to be tied on,” Bridgmohan defined. “There isn’t a stress-free on her or she’s going to simply bounce off the bottom if one thing upsets her. She doesn’t like horses coming behind her and he or she simply fires at them. However she’s a routine type of horse as a result of when the horse drops her off, you’ll gallop her round, and he or she’s having her enjoyable, bucking and taking part in. Then she (focuses) when she sees the horse as a result of she is aware of that proper there may be her consolation zone.”

Because the morning winds down, and after licking her feed tub dry, Maple Leaf Mel finds consolation in her stall and luxuriously stretches out for a sleep whereas her attentive groom, Alejandro Alarçon, appears to be like on.

Giddings beams within the path of her filly and says, “Being round her is tremendous regular for me, however now that she’s in my identify, it’s been slightly loopy as a result of I don’t suppose I ever actually ready myself for (all the eye). After I labored for different individuals, I all the time gave 110% and handled the horses like they had been mine. However there may be simply that totally different feeling…I get up within the morning now and it’s like, they’re all mine.”