Glens Falls winner McKulick headed to Flower Bowl
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – McKulick, who ran down odds-on favorite War Like Goddess to win Thursday’s Grade 2, $250,000 Glens Falls Stakes, will be aimed at the Grade 2, $500,000 Flower Bowl going 1 3/8 miles here on Sept. 2.
War Like Goddess, who had won the previous two runnings of the Glens Falls, could run in the Flower Bowl or face the boys one week earlier in the Grade 1, $750,000 Sword Dancer on Aug. 26.
McKulick, who won the third graded stakes of her career, is named in honor of Mary McKulick, a bookkeeper who was the first employee hired by trainer Chad Brown when he went out on his own in 2007.
“I really wouldn’t be standing here today if I didn’t have someone with her expertise in bookkeeping and organization and management of a training operation,” Brown said afterward.
Bill Mott, the trainer of War Like Goddess, noted that McKulick was also his bookkeeper at one time.
“If I couldn’t be the one that won, I’m glad that’s the one that did in honor of Mary,” Mott said.
War Like Goddess was too rank in the early stages of Thursday’s race.
“Yesterday wasn’t a terrible effort. It looked like maybe he had encouraged her leaving the gate and she never settled after that,” Mott said. “She was just too rank going a mile and a half. She was pulling too hard and it probably took away from her finish.”
Meanwhile, Brown is putting together plans for his bevy of stakes-winning turf females. Technical Analysis, who won Wednesday’s De La Rose Stakes, will point to the Grade 2, $300,000 Ballston Spa Stakes on Aug. 24. Brown didn’t discount Grade 1 Diana Stakes winner Whitebeam from also running in that race.
In Italian, who got beat a nose by Whitebeam in the Diana, will go straight to the Grade 1, $750,000 First Lady at Keeneland on Oct. 7.
Brown plans to run Gina Romantica, last year’s Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II winner, in next Saturday’s Beverly D. at Colonial Downs.
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