Brown rules Lake Placid again behind Aspray's impressive rally

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Trainer Chad Brown continued his dominance of the $200,000, Grade 2 Lake Placid Stakes at Saratoga on Saturday, winning the turf event for 3-year-old fillies for the fifth time in the last six years after Aspray rallied to a very impressive 2-length victory over stablemate Surge Capacity.

Brown saddled the first four betting choices in a field of eight horses assembled for the 1 1/16-mile Lake Placid. Aspray went postward at odds of 3-1 along with Tax Implications, who went off the tepid favorite.

Aspray, who suffered her first setback in four starts when finishing fourth in the 1 1/4-mile Grade1 Belmont Oaks six weeks ago, raced well placed and within easy striking distance of the pacesetting Heavenly Sunday while saving ground for six furlongs. Aspray angled out three wide under jockey Flavien Prat leaving the turn, readily ran down the leaders upon settling into the stretch, quickly drew clear, then maintained a safe advantage under vigorous urging to the end.

Surge Capacity, who won her only two previous starts including the Grade 3 Lake George here on July 21, steadied briefly entering the backstretch, and again behind the winner when racing a bit rankly in the run down the backstretch. She saved ground on the second turn, angled out sharply to commence her bid in early stretch, finished willingly but could not menace the winner while a neck better than Soviet Excess, who was third.

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Tax Implications rallied mildly to finish fourth, followed by her Brown-trained stablemate Prerequisite, Gloria’s Prince, a tiring Heavenly Sunday and Junipermarshmallow, who was being eased at the end.

Aspray, a homebred daughter of Quality Road owned by RanJan Racing Inc., completed the distance over a “good” course in 1:42.85 seconds (92 Beyer Speed Figure) and returned $8.70.

“The cutback in distance ... and she really appreciated the ground today,” Brown noted as the keys to Aspray’s big performance in the Lake Placid. “She didn’t mind a little cut in the ground. And she worked out a beautiful trip from the inside post. Flavien really took advantage of that.”

Brown admitted he ran Aspray a little too far in the Belmont Oaks.

“It (the Oaks) was a very prestigious race, we had to do it,” Brown explained. “Flavien came back after, he knows the horse so well, and was adamant that the distance was a little too far for her. He said cut her back to a mile and one sixteenth or a mile and one eighth and she’d be fine as long as she had a little pace to run at. And he was right. It’s about as far as she wants to go.”

Brown praised runner-up Surge Capacity for her effort.

“Surge Capacity had a bit of a rough trip,” Brown said. “She was very un-cooperative with the rider and probably wore herself out a little bit coming on and off the bridle like she was. I thought Joel (Rosario) did a good job to finally get her settled and make a good race of it. I would have forgave her if she had spit the bit because it was a little rough at one point, but she didn’t. She really showed a lot of heart and has a bright future.”

Brown said he would likely target the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Keeneland on October 14 with Aspray, a race he won last year with Gina Romantica, also with Prat aboard.

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