Brown takes wait-and-see position on Early Voting's next race
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - For the second straight year, trainer Chad Brown and owner Seth Klarman teamed to win the Grade 3 Withers Stakes at Aqueduct. The Eclipse Award-winning connections will hope Early Voting can have more success on the Triple Crown trail this year than Risk Taking did in 2021.
Early Voting improved his record to 2 for 2 with a front-running, 4 1/2-length victory in Saturday’s Withers Stakes. He earned a modest 78 Beyer Speed Figure for the performance, well below the figures earned by other 3-year-olds in prep races run to date. For example, White Abarrio earned a 97 Beyer for Saturday’s Holy Bull at Gulfstream Park. Newgrange (89) and Call Me Midnight (88) also earned higher figs for recent stakes wins.
The low figure and small body of work leave even Brown wondering where Early Voting fits in the Kentucky Derby scene just two months before the race. For now, though, Brown likes what he’s seen from Early Voting, who won a one-mile maiden race in December before Saturday’s Withers.
“I think he’s a rapidly improving horse, I know he didn’t blow anyone’s socks off with his number yesterday, but he’s a horse with a lot of potential, a horse who holds his condition well,” Brown said Sunday from Florida. “I think he’s more than a horse that’s beating up on wintertime horses, and I think the majority of people who would look at his first two races would agree.
"Where he takes us, I don’t know. The waters are certainly going to get a lot deeper.”
Brown was not ready to commit to Early Voting’s next race on Sunday morning. Since Early Voting passed the two-turn, 1 1/8-mile test Saturday, waiting for the Grade 2, $750,000 Wood Memorial on April 9 might seem logical. Conversely, with only two starts under Early Voting’s belt, Brown needs to determine whether running Early Voting in the one-turn-mile Gotham on March 5 might help the horse from a seasoning standpoint.
“It’s not clear to me yet,” Brown said Sunday. “See how he takes this race, how he trains out of the race. I’d be making a mistake if I started to zero in on a firm plan for the horse without seeing him with a saddle on him again.”
Early Voting is expected to remain at Belmont Park, where he has been since last November, after Saratoga closed for training. Early Voting was late to come to Brown’s care, owing to some tendonitis suffered midway through his 2-year-old year, Brown said.
Early Voting was broken by Niall Brennan in Ocala. He didn’t have his first work for Brown until late September, when he was training at Saratoga.
“Niall Brennan always liked him,” Brown said. “He came in with all-positive remarks.”
One difference between Early Voting and Risk Taking - who came out of the Withers to run seventh in the Wood and eighth in the Preakness - was that Brown always viewed Early Voting as a dirt-route horse. With Risk Taking, Brown ran him short on dirt and long on turf in his first two starts.
“My job is to identify the horses that have this type of potential and put them on a path to give them the best chance to succeed and show it,” Brown said. “So far, we picked two races out for the horse that made sense and he’s responded well. We’ll continue to try to develop the horse.”
Brown and Klarman have already shown they are not ones to force the Derby on a horse. In 2017, Cloud Computing won a maiden race in February, ran second in the Gotham and third in the Wood. Though Cloud Computing had enough points to qualify for the Derby, he was held out of the race and ran in and won the Preakness. Last year, Crowded Trade showed a similar profile to Cloud Computing, was held out of the Derby and ran fifth in the Preakness. He was likely more of a one-turn horse anyway.
Meanwhile, Un Ojo, who rallied from last to nip Gilded Age by a head for second in the Withers, will definitely not run in the Gotham, trainer Tony Dutrow said Sunday. Dutrow said he wants to keep the horse around two turns and in races at least at 1 1/8 miles.
“The horse is getting a little better every time he runs,” Dutrow said.
Bill Mott, the trainer of Gilded Age, said his horse would return to Payson Park in Florida, where he trained all winter before shipping up for the Withers.
“We got more options from here,” Mott said.
Gilded Age, like Un Ojo, was far back early, though he launched his bid earlier than Un Ojo and tired late.
“He ran out of training 50 yards before the wire,” Mott said.