Brown goes to the bench for Ballston Spa

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Earlier this week, trainer Chad Brown removed his multiple Grade 1-winning filly Rushing Fall from consideration in the Grade 2 Ballston Spa Handicap on Saturday at Saratoga. He didn’t like the way she worked one week prior to the race.

Good thing Brown’s barn is stacked with high-quality turf females. He’s got three others ready to go in the $400,000 race, including Mascha, a recent allowance winner, and Fifty Five, a New York-bred who has run in the money in 18 of her 19 starts.

Fifty Five was cross-entered in Friday’s Yaddo for statebred fillies, but Brown said Thursday morning she’ll scratch from that race to take a shot in the Ballston Spa, scheduled for 1 1/16 miles. He acknowledges she has been facing weaker for most of her career, but she also has been embarrassing most of them at short odds. She has won five of her last seven starts and hasn’t finished out of the money since the Grade 2 Sands Point nearly two years ago.

“Her numbers are real fast,” Brown said. “If she runs one of her best numbers, she’s going to be very competitive.”

The Ballston Spa drew a field of nine. Secret Message, trained by Graham Motion, was made the 3-1 favorite. The 4-year-old Hat Trick mare is coming off a fourth-place finish in the Grade 1 Diana in her last start, but she won the Grade 2 Nassau Stakes on the Woodbine turf in her previous start, and the listed Dahlia prior to that.

“I think she was unlucky in the Diana,” Motion said. “She got into a little trouble at the top of the stretch.”

Starship Jubilee, a tough competitor from the Woodbine stable of Kevin Attard, was made second choice at 7-2. The 6-year-old Indy Win mare has won 12 of 28 lifetime starts and comes into the Ballston Spa off second-place finishes in two Grade 2 races at Woodbine. One of those was the Nassau, where she gave up a three-length lead in the stretch and was passed late by Secret Message.

“This will be her first start outside South Florida or Canada, and the competition will be different, but I believe she’s earned a shot,” said Attard, who has started only one other horse at Saratoga in his career.

Brown’s Mascha is the third choice at 9-2. An import from Europe, where she ran decently in two group stakes in four starts, Mascha closed well off a decent pace to win a July 31 first-level allowance race on the Saratoga turf in her first start in the United States.

Brown said he’d prefer a little more distance than 1 1/16 miles.

“Maybe her best races are going to be a tick farther than this,” he said.

Brown’s third horse, Significant Form, is stretching out after a race at 5 1/2 furlongs on the turf in which she finished fifth; Brown called that sprint try “really bad judgment on my part.”

The field also includes Scottish Jig, a front-runner from Bill Mott’s barn; Indian Blessing, who’s making a second trip to the United States to try to sweep up some grass wins; Conquest Hardcandy, making her first start in a Grade 2; and Hogans Holiday, jumping up in class for new trainer Robert Falcone, who is replacing the suspended Marcus Vitali.