LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Saturday was a great day for Chad Brown at Churchill Downs.  For the future Hall of Famer, It came inches from becoming the most memorable day of his already outstanding training career. Brown went into the Kentucky Derby having won the Grade 1 Turf Classic with Program Trading and swept the top three placings in the Grade 2 Distaff Turf Mile with Chili Flag, Coppice and Delahaye, respectively, earlier on the card.  But those notable achievements became little more than a distant memory a short while later after Sierra Leone’s bid to give Brown his first Kentucky Derby victory fell a nose short of catching upset winner Mystik Dan. For Brown, it marked the fourth time he’s gotten within striking distance of winning the elusive Derby prize. And it was the fourth time he has come up short. In 2013, Normandy Invasion turned for home on the lead after contesting a wicked early pace before weakening from the effort and finishing fourth.  Five years later, Good Magic was second after futilely chasing the ultimate Triple Crown winner Justify from the top of the stretch to the wire. And in 2022, Zandon got within a length of the lead at the eighth pole before having to settle for third place behind improbable winner Rich Strike. :: Get the Inside Track with the FREE DRF Morning Line Email Newsletter. Subscribe now.  “Regardless of how the rest of my day went, this was a deeply disappointing result,” Brown said.  "I’m realistic about it. I’ve been doing this on my own for 17 years now and you’re prepared for everything that can go wrong.  I’m grateful for the wins we had today and that the horse showed up. I could be talking here after the horse didn’t fire, and then I’d really feel bad. It was only a few inches. It’s very frustrating.”          Brown admitted that, as he watched Sierra Leone begin to launch his bid leaving the backstretch and advancing strongly around the second turn, by the top of the stretch he was confident his horse was in a perfect position to catch the leaders. “When they came off the turn, I thought he was a winner because he had so much momentum going,” Brown said. “I already saw Fierceness was done and, looking who was ahead of him, I really thought he’d be able to reel them in. “  Unfortunately for Brown, Sierra Leone lost some of that momentum by hampering his rider, Tyler Gaffalione, trying to lug in for much of the final furlong and bumping with third-place finisher Forever Young several times along the way. “There was some bumping in the lane, my horse does tend to lean in a little bit. And maybe it was him actually causing it,” Brown admitted. “I wish there wasn’t a horse there inside us, but he has the right to be there. I don’t know how all that affected my horse. I’ll never know, although I still felt pretty good he’d run that horse (Mystik Dan) down. Give credit to the winner. He could have tossed it in, but he kept going. He ran right through the wire. He’s a deserving winner.”  In the end, Brown’s memories of Kentucky Derby Day 2024 will come down to just one thing. “This is such a hard race to win. It’s so hard to get here, so many things have to go right,” Brown lamented. “It’s  disappointing, the result, but I’m so proud of the horse. I’ll have to look at his trip a little closer, but it doesn’t really matter. He got beat a nose.” Just a few inches. For Chad Brown, on this day, it made all the difference in the world. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.