With Flintshire, Brown gets his big horse for Juddmonte

ELMONT, N.Y. – Above the desk in trainer Chad Brown’s Belmont Park office is a picture of Bobby Frankel, the late Hall of Fame trainer under whom Brown worked for several years.

During that period in the early 2000s, Brown got to work with some of the top horses in training, many owned by Prince Khalid Abdullah’s Juddmonte Farms. Last fall, eight years after going out on his own – and six years after Frankel’s death – Brown was afforded the opportunity to train for Juddmonte.

He got a few horses at that time, but in March, he was sent the horse – Flintshire. A three-time Group 1 or Grade 1 winner and a seven-time runner-up in Group 1 or Grade 1 races, Flintshire’s purse earnings of $7,589,910 make him the highest-earning runner ever for Juddmonte, according to Garrett O’Rourke, manager of Juddmonte’s U.S. operation.

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Flintshire, who won last year’s Grade 1 Sword Dancer at Saratoga when in the care of Andre Fabre, will make his first start for Brown in Saturday’s Grade 1, $1 million Manhattan at Belmont Park.

“Of course it’s always been a dream, particularly after Bobby unfortunately passed,” Brown said about training for Juddmonte. “Would the phone ever ring? Would they notice what we were doing over here, especially with our turf horses? But all you can do is stay focused on what you’re doing every day, do the best you can with what you have, and hopefully the best owners with the best horses will notice, especially an operation like Juddmonte.”

Brown, 37, has ascended to become one of the most successful trainers in the country. He was an Eclipse Award finalist in 2014 and 2015, and last year he won 203 races, and his horses earned more than $20.2 million.

O’Rourke said he and other members of Juddmonte took notice of Brown during his time working for Frankel. O’Rourke said Juddmonte gave Brown a couple of horses shortly after he went out on his own at the end of 2007, but they didn’t pan out. For a few years, Juddmonte reduced its U.S. presence and kept all of its U.S.-based runners with Bill Mott, with whom it still has several runners. Juddmonte also added Bob Baffert to its roster.

Brown became part of the team when Juddmonte opted to expand its U.S. presence. Flintshire was a natural fit to come to the U.S. because of his preference for firm ground, as demonstrated by his dominant Sword Dancer win last year. Two years ago, in his other previous U.S. visit, Flintshire finished second to Main Sequence in the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Santa Anita. This fall, the Breeders’ Cup is back at Santa Anita, and O’Rourke said the goal is to get Flintshire back there.

“You’ve got an opportunity to make a horse that is already very accomplished, give him a chance to be a champion, maybe win an Eclipse Award,” O’Rourke said. “We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, but it would be one more accolade that a horse as accomplished as he is would deserve.”

Some have speculated that the timing of the Brown-Juddmonte relationship was sparked by the success Brown had last year with Slumber, a former Juddmonte runner who won the Manhattan after being purchased at the 2014 Keeneland November breeding stock sale for $200,000 by a group that included Bethlehem Stables, Sheep Pond Partners, and Michael Dubb. Slumber is entered in Saturday’s Manhattan.

O’Rourke said he heard that speculation as well but doesn’t believe that played a role in it. He added that the decision to hire Brown was made by Prince Abdullah.

Brown said that during his time working for Frankel, the Juddmonte runners he was around included Grade 1 winners Sightseek, Intercontinental, Tates Creek, Empire Maker, Heat Haze, and Cacique.

On his own, Brown has worked around some top-class horses as well and said it’s not as easy as it looks.

“I find that we’re attracting a lot of the better prospects, and you might hear somebody say, ‘Wow, if I had that horse,’ ” Brown said. “When I watched Bobby operate, I saw it’s not so easy. The horses are great – and you have to have a great horse – but you better know what you’re doing, and you better have highly skilled staff working with you every day as the trainer to be able to manage horses at this level. I watched him, and I tried to learn as much as I could about the important decisions that were made with horses this caliber, and there’s a lot of pressure involved.”

Flintshire is now 6 years old with 19 races under his belt, most of them at the highest level. Brown marvels at the condition the horse was in when he arrived in his stable.

“This horse, he’s really an incredible animal,” Brown said. “First and foremost, Andre Fabre deserves a lot of credit. To get a 6-year-old horse that comes to me in this fine a condition is a rarity. He came in very sound and in really good shape, obviously. He’s been managed and cared for for a lot of tough races. To still be in this condition, you rarely see that.”

Brown hopes the opportunities to get more top-quality horses from Juddmonte are not as rare.

A previous version of this story misstated Chad Brown's age. He is 37, not 43.