Brown loaded for shot at sixth Ballston Spa win
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Chad Brown has half the field and the three top contenders in the Grade 2 Ballston Spa Stakes on Saturday at Saratoga.
So what else is new?
Brown, who has dominated the New York grass racing scene for years, has won two of the last three editions of the Ballston Spa, plus five overall, the current record. He’s less than even money to add his sixth on Saturday, with 8-5 morning-line favorite Viadera, 2-1 second-choice Kalifornia Queen, and 7-2 third-choice Tamahere.
The Ballston Spa is for fillies and mares at 1 1/16 miles on the Saratoga inner turf course, which has dried out over the past week after a solid stretch of rain. The trio Brown brings into the $400,000 race are mostly off-the-pace runners, and in a short field pace dynamics can be hard to predict.
But Viadera is primed for a strong effort. Winner of three stakes races last year, including the Grade 1 Matriarch on firm turf at Del Mar, Viadera comes into the Ballston Spa after finishing a highly troubled fourth in her first race off an eight-month layoff, the Aug. 8 De La Rose, a grass race at Saratoga for horses who hadn’t won a stakes since the start of the year.
Viadera laid off a relatively slow pace in that race and had tons of trouble as they hit the stretch. She got beat 2 3/4 lengths by the winner.
“She got something out of it, and hopefully can move forward off short rest,” Brown said.
All three of Brown’s horses in the Ballston Spa started their careers in Europe. Viadera hails from Ireland, while Kalifornia Queen started her career in Germany. She won a Group 2 there in her third career start, among a group of stakes with distances ranging from 1 1/4 miles to 1 7/8 miles.
Imported to the United States in early 2021, her best race has been her most recent one, the Grade 3 Matchmaker on July 17 at Monmouth, where she closed resolutely between horses but couldn’t catch the winner, Great Island, her stablemate.
Kalifornia Queen has worked three times since that Matchmaker, and Brown thinks she’s best suited to the Ballston Spa’s 1 1/16 miles.
Platinum Paynter, a 5-year-old mare with 18 turf starts under her belt, is likely to go for the lead. It took her 11 starts to win her maiden, in a $16,000 claiming race, but she’s recently competed in a couple Grade 3 turf races in New York and hung on for third in both. Jose Lezcano, who has rated her both times he’s ridden her, is in the saddle from post 5.
:: DRF's Saratoga headquarters – Stakes schedule, previews, recaps, past performances, and more
New York Girl, an Irish-bred by Galileo out of a Giant’s Causeway mare, is winless in her past five starts, four of them graded stakes. The Bill Mott trainee has finished well in three of those graded stakes, but her last win came in a nonwinners-of-one-other-than in December of last year.