Brown holding pair of aces on Breeders' Cup Saturday

ARCADIA, Calif. – Santa Anita has been good to trainer Chad Brown over the years. This is the place where he won his first Breeders’ Cup race, back in 2008. He’s now won 12 Breeders’ Cup races, six of them at Santa Anita.

“I like it out here,” he said Thursday morning while watching his horses train in advance of this year’s Breeders’ Cup on a bright, sunny morning.

Brown – who has won the Eclipse Award as champion trainer three years running – has strong chances to increase his Breeders’ Cup win total on Saturday at Santa Anita, but two of his runners in particular have much on the line.

Bricks and Mortar, who heads up the Turf, and Sistercharlie, who will go for a repeat victory in the Filly and Mare Turf, both are potential candidates for Horse of the Year depending on the outcome of races Saturday. So, too, are a pair of Steve Asmussen trainees – Midnight Bisou in the Distaff and Mitole in the Sprint – along with Code of Honor, who is in the day’s final race, the Classic.

All those runners will be in action on the second day of this year’s Breeders’ Cup, which began Friday with five races for 2-year-olds. Saturday’s card at Santa Anita has nine Breeders’ Cup races, those following three stakes, with the 12-race card beginning at 10:07 a.m. Pacific.

Bricks and Mortar for weeks has topped a media poll conducted by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association. He will be seeking a perfect 2019 campaign of six wins, five in Grade 1 races, with all six of his wins at a different track. Sistercharlie, third in the most-recent poll, is unbeaten in three starts this year, all at different tracks, and like Bricks and Mortar will be racing at Santa Anita for the first time.

Brown also had pacesetter Thais in the Filly and Mare Turf, but she was scratched Thursday. His remaining Saturday Breeders’ Cup runners include Uni and Without Parole in the Mile grass race, and Dunbar Road and Wow Cat in the Distaff.

Cool mornings have given way to gorgeous afternoons this week, and the forecast is for more of the same this weekend. There have been fires this week in areas both 30 miles west and 40 miles east of Santa Anita, but nothing that has impacted Santa Anita, though by Thursday morning a faint smell of smoke was detectable.

The Filly and Mare Sprint is the first Breeders’ Cup race of the day, race 4, with a post of 11:55 a.m. The seven-furlong race features a match between invaders Covfefe and Come Dancing. Brad Free of Daily Racing Form has Covfefe the 2-1 favorite, with Come Dancing next at 5-2.

Stormy Liberal tries for an unprecedented third straight win in the Turf Sprint, but off current form he is 15-1 on the line of Free, who has course specialist Eddie Haskell the 4-1 favorite in a wide-open, five-furlong race.

The talented and popular Omaha Beach tops the Dirt Mile, in which he is favored at 6-5 by Free. The race features the first Breeders’ Cup appearance by a runner based in South Korea, the Kentucky-bred Blue Chipper.

Sistercharlie is even-money on Free’s line in the 1 1/4-mile Filly and Mare Turf, making her the shortest-priced favorite of the day.

As lopsided as that race looks, the Sprint is a corker. Mitole is favored at 5-2, but he has worthy challengers, most notably, Shancelot, the 3-1 second choice. Catalina Cruiser, Imperial Hint, Firenze Fire, and Whitmore give the six-furlong race plenty of depth.

The Mile will have a full field of 14. The mare Uni is the third choice at 4-1, behind European invader Circus Maximus (3-1) and the filly Got Stormy (7-2).

Midnight Bisou is 7-5 in the Distaff, in which she will try to end her 2019 campaign with a perfect 8-for-8 record, with four Grade 1 victories, all against females. She was third in the 1 1/8-mile race last year. Wow Cat, second last year, is 15-1 on Free’s line.

Bricks and Mortar is 6-5 favorite in the Turf, which marks his first attempt at 1 1/2 miles. Europeans Anthony Van Dyck (4-1), who had a canter around the track Thursday morning while leading trainer Aidan O’Brien’s entourage, and Old Persian (6-1), who breezed a quarter-mile through the lane on turf Thursday, are next.

Code of Honor is the 4-1 second choice in the 1 1/4-mile Classic behind McKinzie, who is the lukewarm 7-2 favorite in what shapes up as a compelling finale to the weekend. Vino Rosso is 5-1, and the mare Elate 6-1 as she attempts to emulate Zenyatta by beating the boys in the Classic on the 10-year anniversary of Zenyatta’s feat here.

– additional reporting by David Grening