Brown works five for Just a Game
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y – Trainer Chad Brown has won six of the last seven runnings of the Grade 1 Just a Game Stakes and is expected to have five runners in next Friday’s renewal of the $500,000 one-mile turf race.
Brown is planning to run Beaute Cachee, Chili Flag, Coppice, Gina Romantica, and Whitebeam in the Just a Game. Some of those fillies and mares were also nominated to the Grade 1, $750,000 New York at 1 3/16 miles on the same card.
“I think the [mile] distance suits them, the mile and three-sixteenths might be a little bit far for any one of those five in the Just a Game,” Brown said. “The Just a Game horses could all be Diana horses later on in the summer but a mile and three-sixteenths might be stretching it a little bit.”
Four of Brown’s Just a Game horses worked Friday morning at Saratoga, including Whitebeam, who looked sharp going five furlongs in 1:00.66 by herself over the Oklahoma turf course. Whitebeam, who upset last year’s Diana here, is coming off a neck defeat to Neecie Marie in the Grade 3 Beaugay at Aqueduct.
“That filly did not ship over to Aqueduct and she was not acting good in the paddock,” Brown said. “She was washed out on a cool day and she came up a little empty. I’m going to give her a free pass off the layoff, get her back to an environment she loves at Saratoga.”
Beaute Cachee upset the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley at Keeneland at odds of 25-1 and Chili Flag beat Coppice by a neck in the Grade 2 Distaff Turf Mile at Churchill on Kentucky Derby Day. On Friday morning, Beaute Cachee and Chili Flag worked a half-mile together in 50.23 seconds over the Oklahoma dirt training track.
“They’ve been liking that move, so I left it alone,” Brown said of working them on dirt. “They’ve been exiting their works the right way.”
Gina Romantica, seventh in the Jenny Wiley, worked five furlongs in 1:00.21 by herself over the Oklahoma turf Friday morning.
Also Friday, Coppice worked five furlongs over the turf in 1:01.80 in company with McKulick, who is one of two horses Brown is pointing to the New York. Brown is also running Royalty Interest in the New York. Royalty Interest was scheduled to work at Belmont on Saturday.
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