Alva Starr's win in Madison Stakes still sinking in for trainer Brinkman

Trainer Brett Brinkman is continuing to savor the first Grade 1 victory of his career with Alva Starr, whom he also co-bred with P. Dale Ladner, while looking ahead to other Grade 1 races this season with the filly.

“The training aspect of it hasn’t quite hit home, I don’t think," Brinkman said of Alva Starr, who won Saturday’s Grade 1 Madison Stakes at Keeneland by a half-length over Vahva. “The breeding aspect of it really means a lot to me.”

Ladner purchased Louisiana-bred Sittin At the Bar for $30,000 as a yearling in her home state in 2011. She went on to win 11 of 19 starts for Ladner and Brinkman. A multiple restricted stakes winner in Louisiana, she was also graded stakes-placed at Delta Downs as a juvenile.

Sittin At the Bar has gone on to produce four runners, all stakes winners, for the team. Her best runner of note before Saturday was Cilla, who was Grade 1-placed at 2, and the following year, won the Grade 2 Prioress Stakes and was third in the Grade 2 Raven Run Stakes at Keeneland.

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Last year, Alva Starr won the Prioress at Saratoga, and was second by half a length to Vahva in the Raven Run. Brinkman had long maintained that Alva Starr is faster than Cilla, and the filly bore that out on Saturday by adding a Grade 1 win to the family. In turning the tables on Vahva – who, Brinkman acknowledged, was making her season debut, while his charge had a prep under her belt – Alva Starr earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 100, matching her career best, while improving her record to five wins from eight starts. She has never been worse than second.

Brinkman said the main target for Alva Starr will be a return to Saratoga for this summer’s Grade 1 Ballerina Stakes. Working backward from that, he said she could next appear in the Grade 1 Derby City Distaff, on the May 4 Kentucky Derby undercard at Churchill Downs.

“We plan to nominate her for that, and we will see what the arrangements are for Derby week,” Brinkman said. “She’s a filly who likes to run out of her own stall. There is also the [May 27, Grade 3] Winning Colors after that over there.”

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