Haskell could be perfect spot for Jack Christopher to stretch out

OCEANPORT, N.J. – A year ago, last July 20, Chad Brown, four-time Eclipse Award-winning trainer, had 13 graded stakes wins and $9.2 million in earnings. Great numbers – just not great by Brown’s standards.

Through July 20, 2022, Brown had won a North American-best 28 graded stakes with stable earnings of $15.7 million. Great numbers – period.

Brown has dominated the older filly-and-mare turf division, an annual ritual, but his barn is loaded with 3-year-old dirt horses. Zandon captured the Grade 1 Blue Grass and finished third in the Kentucky Derby; Brown came back two weeks later winning the Preakness with Early Voting.

Now it’s Jack Christopher’s turn, and the way Brown’s year has gone, Saturday’s Grade 1, $1 million Haskell at Monmouth Park feels like the next domino to fall.

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Jack Christopher was one of the stars of Belmont Stakes week, winning the Grade 1 Woody Stephens by 10 lengths while never turning a hair. He ships Saturday morning from Belmont to Monmouth a four-time winner from four starts, all by 2 3/4 lengths or more, and his 107 Beyer Speed Figure from last month’s tour de force tops this field of eight. The only question is whether Jack Christopher, who never has raced beyond one mile and hasn’t gone two turns, can be as effective in the 1 1/8-mile Haskell.

“I feel confident,” Brown said Wednesday. “Especially at Monmouth, I think he’ll have no trouble with two turns.”

Jack Christopher and jockey Jose Ortiz are ideally drawn in post 7. They can pull a pressing trip if another horse wants the lead, but Jack Christopher, very fast, can try to make all the running. Monmouth’s 990-foot homestretch offers a sharp miler a favorable configuration to carry speed a furlong farther.

While Jack Christopher has raced only four times, Taiba, the 7-5 morning-line Haskell favorite (Jack Christopher is the more likely chalk), has only three starts. Just one of those, a jaw-dropping maiden win that yielded a 103 Beyer, came with Bob Baffert at the helm.

Baffert has been a Haskell boss. He’s won the race nine times with stars as bright as Triple Crown hero American Pharoah. Even Baffert isn’t entirely certain what he’s running Saturday.

“We know he’s very talented,” Baffert said. “But we don’t know that much about him. He’s still learning. We don’t even know what his real race style is.”

With John Velazquez riding, Taiba pressed the pace in his sprint debut. Under Mike Smith, his Haskell jockey, he swooped from a stalking position winning the Santa Anita Derby.

Taiba’s raw talent came clear when he went directly from his six-furlong debut romp to win the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby over 1 1/8 miles. By then, Baffert was serving a 90-day suspension, Taiba having moved to trainer Tim Yakteen. Yakteen, backed by aggressive, assertive owner Amr Zedan, took Taiba to the Kentucky Derby, where everything happened too fast for the twice-started colt, who stalked the pace and faded to 12th.

Taiba returned to California, cursorily joined the stable of trainer Sean McCarthy, and got on a steady work pattern, logging four breezes between June 8 and June 25. Then came a gap in published works through July 7 (nothing was amiss with the colt, Baffert said), by which time Taiba was back with Baffert.

Baffert removed blinkers in which Taiba had been working, drilled him on July 8 and again on July 15, and gave the thumbs-up for a cross-country ship. Taiba came to Monmouth from Santa Anita on Tuesday, traveled well, and got over the local dirt track comfortably Wednesday and Thursday.

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Zedan paid $1.7 million to acquire Taiba at a 2-year-old in training sale, where he breezed like a lightning bolt. Oddly, his works at the track don’t dazzle, especially by the standards of top Baffert 3-year-olds. Taiba bears a striking resemblance to his sire, Gun Runner, though the son, of modest height but with an eight-cylinder engine for hindquarters, is more physically advanced than the father at this age. He requires company to put out much in the morning. Baffert said Taiba only runs as fast as his breeze partners.

Cyberknife, who could be the Haskell third betting choice, can turn in excellent morning work but has yet to run nearly as fast as Jack Christopher and Taiba. His signature win, the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby, produced only a 92 Beyer Speed Figure, and in his next start Cyberknife wilted in the Kentucky Derby pressure-cooker, beating just two of 19 rivals. At odds of 1-2 in the Matt Winn Stakes on June 12, he won a desperate photo over fellow Haskell runner Howling Time.

“Based off how he trains and how he runs in the afternoon, there’s more in the tank,” said Cox, who last year won his first Haskell, via disqualification, with Mandaloun. Cyberknife, also by Gun Runner, was erratic in his early races and during morning training, and back at the barn could be a handful. Cox said Cyberknife has settled down, matured, while acknowledging his horse needs more.

“I think we’ll have to see the best of Cyberknife if he’s going to win,” Cox said.

Cyberknife and Florent Geroux are stuck in post 1, hoping multiple pace players show up, spread the field, and give Cyberknife room to operate.

Howling Time led in his last two races and has speed, but he’s done all his best work at Churchill Downs. Trainer Dale Romans said Howling Time got off track this winter when he was pushed to make the Triple Crown.

“He’s been getting better and better,” Romans said.

White Abbario, second last out in the Ohio Derby, also looks like a horse for a course that’s not Monmouth: At Gulfstream Park he’s won all four of his starts, including the Florida Derby, but he’s 3-0-1-1, including a 16th in the Kentucky Derby, at other tracks.

Benevengo needs to improve by several lengths to contend for a minor award. The other two in the field, One Time Willard and King of Hollywood, need a miracle.

The Haskell is the 12th of 14 races on a six-stakes Saturday at Monmouth, where the mercury is forecast to hit 92 on a sunny day. The race is a part of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series, offering the winner automatic fees-paid entry into the BC Classic. Fixed-odds wagering is available ontrack. The Haskell caps an all-stakes pick four that starts with the Matchmaker Stakes, where Brown has three live chances, and runs through the Molly Pitcher, where Brown runs heavily favored Search Results. In the Grade 1 United Nations, race 11, Brown-trained Tribhuvan and Adhamo should run one-two.

By the time the feature comes up at 5:45 p.m. Eastern, Brown might already have had himself a day. To be sure, the Haskell is no gimme. Taiba might turn out to be a star. He breaks from post 2 and most likely will be in the second flight of runners unless Smith wants to take the fight to Jack Christopher from the start, testing his stamina. Jack Christopher is by the versatile sire, Munnings, but his dam was a sprinter, as was her dam.

Brown has seen enough good horses by now to know to look at the animal in front of his face more than the names of ancestors on a page. And what he thinks he’s been looking at is the 2022 Haskell winner.