SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Melanie Giddings stood at the end of barn 69, her face awash in sadness, as she stared down the shedrow. The two horses closest to her, both grays, had their heads sticking out of their stalls, and were munching on hay.

But it was the empty stall a little farther down – lacking one gray filly in particular – that was top of mind.

“She just loved to run, that horse,” Giddings said. “She didn’t want anything different,”

Of course, Giddings was talking about Maple Leaf Mel, the 3-year-old filly who, just yards from victory in Saturday’s Grade 1 Test Stakes at Saratoga, suffered a comminuted fracture of the fetlock in her right foreleg and went down, sending jockey Joel Rosario tumbling across the finish line. With a dislocation of the joint, Maple Leaf Mel had to be euthanized on the track.

Rosario needed three stitches in his lower lip. He was off his remaining mounts Saturday and, due to general body soreness, took off Sunday as well.

Giddings, just nine months into her training career, was understandably still distraught Sunday morning.

“I feel sorry for my crew and everybody,” Giddings said. “The groom’s devastated. So am I.”

But Giddings had to come to work Sunday morning because the other seven horses in her barn “need care,” she said. “It’s not like the rest of them know what happened.”

Before what happened did happen, Maple Leaf Mel was about to win her sixth race in as many starts. She was going to give Bill Parcells, the two-time Super Bowl-winning coach and longtime Thoroughbred horse owner, his first victory in a Grade 1 stakes. She was going to beat a field that included Kentucky Oaks and Acorn winner Pretty Mischievous.

“Just had no doubt she was a winner,” Giddings said. “Just too fast for herself.”

Giddings recalled the moments before bringing Maple Leaf Mel – named by Parcells to honor Giddings – to the paddock for Saturday’s race.

“I went to put the bridle on her before we went over and she was nickering, she was so excited,” Giddings said. “This is what she loved to do.”

Parcells, who had made the tough decision to move the horse from her previous trainer, Jeremiah Englehart, to Giddings following her victory in the Grade 3 Miss Preakness in May, had many members of his family at Saratoga for the race. He left the track shellshocked.

“Coach called me [Saturday] and told me how sorry he was for me,” Giddings said. “I felt sorry for him. He had his whole family here and she could have done it for him. He just told me he was proud of me, that I showed that I could compete at that level. It meant a lot.”

From the time of the incident through Sunday morning, Giddings received dozens of messages and gestures of support and comfort.

One of the classiest moves was by Brendan Walsh, trainer of Pretty Mischievous, who was the official winner of the Test, besting Cleary Unhinged by a head. Walsh, late Sunday morning, brought the wreath of carnations that go to the Test winner and laid them over the webbing outside of Maple Leaf Mel’s stall.

“She was the best horse in the race,” Walsh said. “It was just horrible what happened. When I think about it, if it happened to [Pretty Mischievous] I’d be an absolute mess. We weren’t sure if it would be a nice thing or not to do, but the team at Godolphin, they were all for it as well, and I think Melanie liked it.”

Walsh said his assistant, Charlie Lynch, was the one who retrieved the wreath of flowers Sunday morning. They would have been draped over Pretty Mischievous in the winner’s circle, but there was no ceremony following the Test. Walsh said when he went to see his filly on the track, he saw Giddings on the track crying, and went over to give her a hug.

“I can’t imagine what she’s gone through the last 12 hours,” Walsh said “It’s just devastating. She just thanked me. I went over and gave her a hug because she just stood there crying. I felt so bad. I’d say she just doesn’t know what to think right now, you know. Any of us really feel for her. I would have rather just finished second and everybody come back fine.”

Englehart, who said he told Parcells last year that Maple Leaf Mel would win this year’s Test, said he watched the race from home, but when he saw what happened, he drove his kids over to the barn area and they sat with Giddings in her office. Englehart stopped by Giddings’ barn Sunday morning.

“My main goal was to be there for her and [boyfriend Shaun Bridgmohan], the groom, and everyone that’s been with her and that I spent time with over the last few years,” Englehart said. “Regardless if I’m with the horse, they’ve done so much for me over the last few years, you want to let them know you’re there for support.”

Englehart had a similar experience just three years ago when his New York-bred filly Samborella won the Seeking the Ante Stakes at Saratoga, but took a bad step before crossing the wire. She was vanned off and later euthanized.

Giddings, 39, has gone through her own personal struggles. A few years ago, she was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian and endocervical cancer, which, through treatment, is in remission.

“Everybody keeps telling me the same old line, ‘God only gives you what you can handle,’ “ Giddings said. “I don’t know why it’s me or how many times I got to keep doing it.”

But Giddings will keep doing it.

“Can’t quit now, right?” she said.