in 1996, when she was four, serena's song started 15 times, winning 5 times, placing in 7 races, and coming in third twice. she ran over eight tracks and never finished worse than third. in may, she shipped to baltimore and won the grade two pimlico distaff, now called the allaire dupont distaff stakes, on the preakness stakes undercard. she came very close to winning the whitney handicap and was second in the breeders' cup distaff. that year, she brought home $1,164,133.