Brown 'leaning to Blue Grass' for Good Magic's next start

BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. – Good Magic, last year’s champion 2-year-old male, was in good health Sunday morning at the Palm Meadows training center, a day after he emerged from his third-place finish in the Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park “a little tired,” trainer Chad Brown said.

“The horse came out of the race a little tired,” Brown said. “He’s in good order. He scoped clean. Hopefully he got something out of a race it looks like he needed.

“I'm disappointed he didn't win, but happy with how he came back. It was a solid-enough effort, and hopefully he’s ready to move forward.”

The Fountain of Youth was the first start for Good Magic since he won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Del Mar and secured the Eclipse Award as the divisional champion for 2017. He raced three paths wide throughout in the Fountain of Youth while stalking the pace over a track that was fast, but dull, and over which there was little changing of places throughout the race. The top two finishers, Promises Fulfilled and Strike Power, were one-two the whole way.

Promises Fulfilled got a Beyer Speed Figure of 96. Good Magic was beaten 4 1/2 lengths, earning him an 89. That equals what he got when finishing second in the Champagne Stakes last October. His career-high is the 100 he got in the Breeders’ Cup.

Brown said that he’s “still leaning to the Blue Grass” as the next and final prep for Good Magic for the May 5 Kentucky Derby, but said Good Magic would “be nominated everywhere.” The Blue Grass, on April 7 at Keeneland, would give Good Magic five weeks from the Fountain of Youth, and then four weeks to the Kentucky Derby.

The Blue Grass also is appealing because if Good Magic heads there, he would ship just once, to Kentucky. If he were to go to the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct, also April 7, the spacing between races would be similar to the Blue Grass, but Good Magic would have to travel to New York and then on to Kentucky.

“The logistics are better. There’s less shipping,” Brown said. “I’ve been second in the Blue Grass the last two years and my horses have exited the race well.”

Brown said Good Magic was “blowing hard” when he came back to be unsaddled after the Fountain of Youth.

“We thought there was a chance he could take his first race harder,” Brown said. “That’s why in the cycle there’s five weeks from his first to his second race, and then four weeks from the second race to the Derby.”