Brown's pair could be enough in Gallorette
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BALTIMORE – It’s not often that trainer Chad Brown is outnumbered in a graded stakes race on turf, but his formidable duo of Whitebeam and Eminent Victor face three solid foes from Graham Motion’s barn in a competitive edition of Saturday’s Grade 3 Gallorette for fillies and mares at 1 1/16 miles at Pimlico.
Whitebeam, a Juddmonte homebred foaled in England, made her North American debut for Brown in Aqueduct’s Plenty of Grace on April 16. Stymied by glacial fractions in a race won by pacesetter Evvie Jets, Whitebeam still rallied to finish second, beaten only a neck.
“She broke a little slow like a lot of these Euros do,” Brown said earlier this week. “She did kick down the lane, albeit not with an amazing turn of foot. I see her pretty sharp now. If she gets out of the gate better this time and gets herself better position, I expect her to really move forward.”
Eminent Victor, a stakes-winning daughter of Mr. Z, hasn’t raced since finishing sixth of nine in the Winter Memories on Nov. 11 at Aqueduct.
“She really started off the first half of the season the right way,” Brown said, alluding to her victory in Belmont’s Wild Applause last spring. “The second half of the year, she threw in a couple of subpar performances where she trained far better than she ran. I just summed up that she might have needed a break and was over the top the second half.”
Brown had originally penciled in an allowance race this week for Eminent Victor’s return, but opted for the Gallorette because “she’s training so well, and her best races were early after a break.”
At 7-2 on Keith Feustle’s morning line, Vergara is the shortest price of the Motion-trained entrants. A multiple stakes winner by Noble Mission owned by Gary Broad, Vergara finished second in her final start of 2022, the Grade 2 Sands Point at the Belmont at the Big A meeting.
“It looks like she’s going to appreciate longer,” Motion said, mentioning Vergara’s victory in the Dueling Grounds Oaks traveling 1 5/16 miles at Kentucky Downs last summer. I think this is a good starting point. She hasn’t done quite as much as a lot of the horses that I’ve started lately, but I think this is a great opportunity for her. She’s doing well.”
Of the Motion runners, Vergara is the only one with prior racing experience at Pimlico, finishing third in last year’s Hilltop for 3-year-old fillies at one mile.
Sopran Basilea, an Irish-bred mare by Night of Thunder, makes her North American debut after campaigning exclusively in Italy. A Group 2 winner at 1 1/4 miles, Sopran Basilea was purchased for $315,000 at public auction in December. She’s been entered several times this year but was forced to scratch due to weather and track cancellations.
“She’s ended up having a couple of more works, so she’s plenty fit,” Motion said. “We toyed with the idea of going to Kentucky with her because we think she needs farther, but this seems like more of a conservative approach.”
Unlike her two stablemates, multiple stakes winner Bipartisanship has already raced this year, finishing a close third in a third-level allowance at Keeneland on April 21.
“We hadn’t originally planned on this race,” Motion admitted. “We think she fits with these horses. She seemed to handle her first race back well.”
The much-improved Princess Theorem is a contender for trainer Brendan Walsh after finishing third in Gulfstream’s Grade 3 Honey Fox on March 4 and second to the promising Marketsegmentation in the Sand Springs there April 1.
She has the tactical speed to get close to a pace likely set by Traffic Song, a front-running winner of a conditioned allowance on March 25 at Gulfstream. Traffic Song is trained by Jimmy Toner, who won with 5 of 10 starters between March 25 and May 6, according to DRF Formulator statistics.
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