Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
The surfaces at Saratoga are likely to be scrutinized as never before after the deaths of 14 horses sapped much of the joy from last summer’s meet. No one will be taking a harder look than Chad Brown, who tied with Linda Rice as leading trainer for the 40-day stand with 35 victories.
Brown did not like what he saw during the four-day Belmont Stakes racing festival at Saratoga, asserting that the surface did not play fairly to horses who need to come from well off the pace while blaming the dirt track for an injury to Randomized, one of the nation’s finest fillies.
“That track was really hard Belmont week,” said Brown. “You saw the times. You saw the speed-favoring track.”
The racing festival was a mixed bag for Brown. Some of the top horses from his high-powered barn did not run to expectations, but others such as Randomized thrived under the conditions. She took an early lead in the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps on June 8 and continued on the front end in halting Idiomatic’s six-race winning streak. Ways and Means and General Partner were other impressive winners for his outfit.
According to Brown, Randomized, a daughter of 2016 Kentucky Derby winner Nyquist, exited the 1 1/8-mile contest with a quarter crack. “That filly got a quarter crack because the track was like a highway,” said the native of nearby Mechanicville.
Brown said he “absolutely” attributed Sierra Leone’s third-place finish in the Belmont Stakes to a speed bias. The Kentucky Derby runner-up came with a charge that was too little too late in finishing behind speedster Dornoch and lightly raced Mindframe. The final leg of the Triple Crown was run at 1 1/4 miles instead of the customary 1 1/2 miles because of Saratoga’s configuration, and it was held in upstate New York for the first time while Belmont Park is rebuilt.
“When it did work against you, it was painful to watch,” Brown said. “So hopefully it’s a fair track for everyone and you slow it down a little bit. I’m really curious when this meet opens to see how the track is playing.”
Brown said he was among a number of trainers who complained to New York Racing Association officials about the surface. He believes they are responding to the concerns that were voiced.
“I know they’re working on it. So when I saw that, it’s not that they’re not listening. Management is not totally blind to the fact that, ‘Hey the track was playing really fast,’ ” he said. “Some people were complaining about it. It wasn’t really fair.”
This is hardly a loser’s lament. Brown is expected to be on or near the lead for the training title virtually throughout the meet, which opens Thursday and extends through Labor Day. In a sign of his prominence on turf, he will saddle half of the 10 runners in Saturday’s Diana in a bid for his record-extending ninth victory in that Grade 1 race.
Chili Flag, an improved 5-year-old coming off a victory against stablemate Whitebeam in the one-mile Just a Game (G1), leads his formidable contingent. She is joined by defending champion Whitebeam, Coppice, Fluffy Socks and Gina Romantica.
One question is whether Chili Flag can step up an additional furlong. “The big test for her is going to be the mile and an eighth, to see if she can produce the same closing kick,” Brown said. “It’s definitely a question mark.”
He has two prospects for the Aug. 24 Travers (G1). As much as he covets the mid-summer derby, it has been maddeningly elusive for him. Sierra Leone is likely to use the July 27 Jim Dandy (G2) as his Travers prep after some thought was given to training him up to the 1 1/4-mile contest.
“I think it is too far of a gap between the Belmont and the Travers,” Brown said. “I think the horse could probably use a race in between.”
He is excited to see what 2-for-2 Unmatched Wisdom can do in the 1 1/8-mile Curlin on July 19. “That horse is nice. If he can stay healthy and run the right way in the Curlin, that’s another horse possibly for the Travers,” said Brown of a race he has dreamed of winning since he was a boy.