With her scintillating score in the $225,000 Adirondack S. (G3) Aug. 2 at Saratoga, Stress Relief became the 40th lifetime graded stakes winner for Not This Time.
Not This Time has led the 2026 General Sire list for most of the year, and now has 19 stakes winners, 11 graded winners and progeny earnings of more than $20.4 million.
Stress Relief added her name to the burgeoning list with a fantastic closing kick. After sitting a couple of lengths off the lead for the first half-mile, Stress Relief made a four-wide move turning for home to get within a length of pacesetter Luminous Beauty. Those two battled until reaching the sixteenth pole, when Stress Relief found another gear, drawing off to win by 3 ½-lengths.
“When she broke her maiden at Churchill, (owner/breeder) Joel Politi was there with his family, and he looked at me and said, ‘Can’t wait for the Adirondack,’” trainer Kinnon LaRose said. “For us to be able to get here and [have] everything go right, we got lucky. She’s a classy filly and she ran a great race. Junior [Alvarado] rode her perfectly.”
With Sunday’s win, Stress Relief is two-for-two and has earned $192,246 in her young career. She is the first foal out of two-time stakes winner Littlestitious, making her a half-sister to this year’s Los Alamitos Derby winner Sabino Canyon.
