Breeders' Cup Juvenile: Brown has two prospects for first crack at race
Chad Brown has spent the better part of the last year shedding his reputation as simply a turf trainer.
Last October, he won the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint with Wavell Avenue. This year, he won the Grade 2 Gotham and Grade 2 Gazelle, had two runners in the Kentucky Derby, and one in the Oaks. In the summer, he won the Grade 1 Hopeful and two weeks ago the Grade 2 Pennsylvania Derby.
“It’s where our program is headed,” Brown said. “I’ve been given some opportunities with some talented young dirt horses, and now those horses are developing, both 2- and 3-year-olds. It’s really completed our stable.”
In Practical Joke, the Hopeful winner, and Favorable Outcome, a debut winner at Saratoga, Brown will have two of the six runners in Saturday’s Grade 1, $500,000 Champagne Stakes at Belmont. The Champagne and Saturday’s Grade 1, $500,000 Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland are Win and You’re In races for the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile on Nov. 5 at Santa Anita.
Brown has yet to compete in the Juvenile, but he’s got two potential candidates this year. Practical Joke, a son of Into Mischief, won his maiden by five lengths Aug. 6 and then got up to win the Hopeful by a neck. Favorable Outcome, a son of Flatter, won his debut by six lengths at Saratoga on Aug. 20. Both horses are owned by Seth Klarman and William Lawrence.
Of Favorable Outcome, Brown said, “He’s a talented horse; we thought quite a bit of him before we debuted him, and he didn’t disappoint.”
Practical Joke, Brown said, is “a bigger, stronger, more physical presence. He’s a horse that’s always trained very well, maybe not as sharp as Favorable Outcome, but steady. The thing about Practical Joke, to go along with his handsome looks, the horse has always trained like he’s a 3-year-old, mentally. Nothing seems to rattle him at all.”
In the Champagne, Practical Joke will break from the rail under Joel Rosario, who replaces Irad Ortiz Jr. Favorable Outcome will break from post 5 under Javier Castellano.
Trainer Todd Pletcher has also entered two in the Champagne. Syndergaard, 2 for 2 against New York-breds, drew post 3. Thirst for Victory, a three-length debut winner in the slop at Saratoga, drew post 2.
Others entered include Lookin at Blessing (post 4) and Big Gray Rocket (post 6).
The Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland drew a field of 12 led by Classic Empire, the winner of the Bashford Manor, who wheeled coming out of the starting gate and unseated jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. in the Hopeful.
Trainer Mark Casse will equip Classic Empire with blinkers for the Futurity.
“He’s training exceptionally well,” Casse said. “We broke him out of the gate, and he worked phenomenal.”
He drew post 11 in the Futurity.
“I’m not really concerned about,” Casse said. “He’s going to have good speed; he’ll have enough speed to get him up in a good position early.”
Bitumen, the winner of the Grade 3 Sanford at Saratoga; Gunnevera, the winner of the Grade 2 Saratoga Special, and Lookin at Lee, the winner of the Ellis Park Juvenile, are among the other notables in the Futurity.
◗ Trainer Bob Baffert said beaten FrontRunner favorite Klimt came out of his second-place finish to Gormley in good order and remains on course for the Juvenile.
“He sort of broke sluggishly. Next thing you know, he was way out the back, and he wasn’t used to that,” Baffert said. “He looks good. He got a lot out of it. The horse that won ran a pretty good race; he didn’t give it up.”
◗ Not This Time worked a half-mile in 49 seconds Sunday at Churchill, his first breeze since his dynamic victory in the Iroquois Stakes at Churchill Downs on Sept. 17.