SARATOGA SPRINGS — At some point this morning, Rick Mettee’s cell phone will ring with some very important news.

On the other end of the line will be Mettee’s boss, trainer Saeed bin Suroor, calling from England with the most-anticipated decision of the Saratoga Race Course meeting.

Will Music Note, the leading

3-year-old filly in the country, join her stablemate Little Belle and headline today’s Grade I Alabama, or will she wait another week and take on males by herself in the $1 million Travers?

Although Mettee, Suroor’s New York-based assistant, has been fielding the questions, the answer was to come from a consultation among the trainer, owner Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum and Godolphin racing manager Simon Crisford.

“They just wanted another 24 hours to mull the situation,” Mettee said Friday morning. “They’d probably rather not run the two fillies against one another, but there’s certainly concerns with muddy tracks and big fields in the Travers. I think that’s playing in their minds.

“They understand this is a good opportunity. The Alabama is a small field, and the Travers, you don’t know. You start getting into 12 horses and maybe mud, and all of a sudden, post position becomes very important, things like that.”

Aside from Music Note, a field of 11 is shaping up for the Travers, including Belmont Stakes winner Da’ Tara, Jim Dandy winner

Macho Again, Canadian classic winner Harlem Rocker, Santa Anita

Derby winner Colonel John, and multiple graded stakes winner Pyro.

Although without a horse for

either race, trainer David Carroll does have an interesting perspective on the Music Note intrigue.

He ran against many of the Travers-bound colts in the Triple Crown races with Denis of Cork, who was third in the Kentucky Derby and second in the Belmont before an ankle injury ended his season.

Carroll also saddled Grade III winner Acoma, beaten nearly 19 lengths running fourth of five as a distant 2-1 second choice in the Coaching Club American Oaks. That race was the fourth straight victory for Music Note.

“I ran against her in the Coaching Club, or at least we were in the same race,” Carroll said. “She was ultra-impressive. She’s a big, strong filly, and she’s been handled beaut­ifully. She would beat a lot of the colts, that’s for sure.

“I raced against the colts and I’ve raced against her, and I wouldn’t be shy about putting her in the Travers. The owners are sporting people and never shy of taking a chance. I’m sure they’ll make the right decision.”

Having Little Belle in the barn has given Godolphin more reason to consider the Travers. Little Belle is a Grade I winner herself, taking the Ashland on Keeneland’s Polytrack in April.

“Everybody’s still a little skep­tical of those races,” Mettee said. “If you look at her lifetime record, it’s pretty good. Other than where she ran sprinting her first time, she’s never been worse than second.”

Music Note and Little Belle are the even-money program favorites for the Alabama, which drew a field of six including another Grade I winner in Proud Spell.

Trained by Larry Jones, Proud Spell handed champion Indian Blessing the first loss of her career in the Fair Grounds Oaks in March. She finished third to Little Belle in the Ashland, then came back to win the Kentucky Oaks on dirt.

From there, Proud Spell had a nightmare trip to run second in the Mother Goose behind Music Note, only to be disqualified to third. Two weeks later, Proud Spell had to work hard to beat an overmatched field in the Delaware Oaks, but has had five weeks to recover.

“She’s been very durable, and she’s stepped up to the plate every

time,” Jones said. “She beat an undefeated champion filly, and that filly’s not getting beat any more.

“It’s not like she runs bad races. Even the fiasco at Belmont, when she finally got back on her feet

after leaving the gate and again after leaving the quarter pole, she was still making a run at Music Note, and still getting back to her. She doesn’t have the word quit in her vocab­ulary. She’s just a nice little filly.”