Breeders' Cup: Brown prepares to say goodbye to trio of star turf mares
ELMONT, N.Y. – From 41 starts in this country, they have combined to win 27 races, 23 graded stakes, 17 Grade 1’s and bank nearly $8.5 million. They are all Breeders’ Cup winners. Two are champions.
On Saturday at the Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland, the triumvirate of Sistercharlie, Uni, and Rushing Fall will each make the final start of her career, and the significance of that is not lost on their trainer, Chad Brown.
“Any single one of them would be a horse of a career for a trainer,” Brown said Sunday at Belmont Park after watching all three put in their final workouts. “To have three of them at the same time is really remarkable when you stop for a minute to think about it. It’s not lost with me or my staff of how significant today was, having their last breeze and the fact a week from today they’re going to be out of our care forever.”
Rushing Fall, a six-time Grade 1 winner, and Sistercharlie, a seven-time Grade 1 winner, will run in Saturday’s $2 million Filly and Mare Turf, a race Sistercharlie won in 2018 to cap an Eclipse Award-winning campaign. Rushing Fall won the 2017 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf but has not run in a Breeders’ Cup race since. Uni, a four-time Grade 1 winner, will look to win the BC Mile against males for the second straight year, her victory last November at Santa Anita clinching an Eclipse Award.
All three came into Brown’s barn around the same time in 2017. Uni and Sistercharlie, originally based in Europe, actually made their North American debuts in the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks on July 8. Brown won the race with New Money Honey, while Sistercharlie finished second and Uni third.
Sistercharlie, an Irish-bred daughter of Myboycharlie who was sent to Brown by owner Peter Brant, would not run again until the following April. According to Brown, Sistercharlie developed pneumonia and was in the clinic for a while. When she did return in 2018, Sistercharlie had a near-perfect campaign, winning four Grade 1 stakes, including the BC Filly and Mare Turf. Her lone loss that year came to stablemate Fourstarcrook in the Grade 2 New York, which Sistercharlie lost by a head.
Sistercharlie continued her success at 5, winning the Diana, Beverly D., and Flower Bowl – all Grade 1’s – before finishing third in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf. Her campaign this year got started late, and she finished third in the Diana and Ballston Spa at Saratoga.
“The fact that she came back from [pneumonia] and had the career that she’s had just goes to show what a tough mare she is,” Brown said. “I’m still seeing that at age 6, in her shaking the rust off, battling back, getting herself back in form. I see a pretty strong horse entering the Breeders’ Cup.”
If she is to win the Breeders’ Cup, Sistercharlie will have to beat Rushing Fall, something she did in the 2018 Diana. That is one of just three losses in a 14-race career for Rushing Fall, a daughter of More Than Ready owned by Bob Edwards’ e Five Racing Thoroughbreds.
Brown said Rushing Fall showed her talent in her first breeze for him on turf.
“It was electrifying,” said Brown, who said she worked similar to Lady Eli, another champion turf mare of his.
Rushing Fall won eight of her first nine starts. It was her victory in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf that still sticks out to Brown.
“That’s where she sort of announced ‘I’m very, very special,’ ” Brown said. “I thought she overcame a lot with short rest . . . She had a brutal trip, I thought, and still won.”
When Rushing Fall won the Jenny Wiley at Keeneland in July, it was her fourth consecutive year winning a Grade 1 stakes. Lady Eli is believed to be the only other turf female to accomplish that feat. Rushing Fall followed with her Diana victory and heads into the Breeders’ Cup with a chance to win her first Eclipse Award.
“Really, the only thing left on her résumé to cap off a Hall of Fame career would be an Eclipse Award,” Brown said. “It’s there for her clearly if she wins.”
Uni is the reigning champion female turf horse. Though she ran okay at 1 1/4 miles in the 2017 Belmont Oaks, Brown said that as he trained her throughout that year he felt she would be a better miler.
Uni’s victory in the Grade 1 Matriarch at Del Mar in December 2018 “was really the race I believe that Uni really announced I’m very special,’ ” Brown said.
Uni is owned by a group that includes Sol Kumin, Robert LaPenta, Michael Dubb, and Michael Caruso. Like Brant with Sistercharlie, that quartet was game to bring Uni back for a 6-year-old campaign. After dull efforts in her first two starts this year, Uni won the Grade 1 First Lady for a second straight year.
“They got started late,” Brown said. “They were a bit rusty, to say the least. They both seem to be rounding into form, which I’m very glad to see. There’s no guarantee a 6-year-old mare when they start off rusty that they don’t stay that way.”
After Saturday, Sistercharlie will be bred by Brant, most likely to Dubawi. Rushing Fall and Uni are cataloged to be sold Sunday at the Fasig-Tipton November sale as broodmare prospects.
Brown, like a college coach who sees top talent graduate and move on, will look to recruit the next class of stars.
“No matter what those future stars look like, those three horses, their impact in our stable and my career, will never be forgotten,” Brown said.