McKinzie's Whitney win caps an emotional day at Saratoga

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - On a day when emotions ran high as the New York Racing Association and the local community paid tribute to Marylou Whitney, there was another person missing from the proceedings on a sun-splashed summer afternoon at Saratoga.

Brad McKinzie, a longtime racetrack executive and one of trainer Bob Baffert’s best friends, died two years ago. At his funeral, Baffert and his owners Mike Pegram, Karl Watson, and Paul Weitman - also good friends of McKinzie - named a then-2-year-old son of Street Sense after him.

On Saturday, the thoroughbred McKinzie did his namesake proud, winning the Grade 1, $1 million Whitney Stakes by 1 3/4 lengths over Yoshida before an announced crowd of 40,791 that included - for one race anyway - New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

In a rare appearance at Saratoga, Cuomo declared Saturday Marylou Whitney Stakes Day and announced a new pavilion would be named in her honor to hold functions on the track’s backstretch, replacing a temporary tent.

Video tributes to Whitney, who died on July 19 at the age of 93, were shown between races. Emotions lasted until late in the afternoon when John Hendrickson presented the connections of McKinzie with the Whitney trophy.

“It’s sad that Marylou wasn’t here, I would have really liked that,” said Baffert, who won his first Whitney. “I told John Hendrickson I’m just emotional because I was thinking about Brad McKinzie and how we loved him and I’m glad this horse is as good as he is. We named him at his funeral.”

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McKinzie had won some important races, including the Grade 1 Los Alamitos Futurity at 2 and the Pennsylvania Derby and Malibu - both Grade 1s - at 3. But the Whitney now becomes his top accomplishment.

“When he got beat in the Met Mile I said we need a really sexy win into him and the Whitney, it doesn’t get any sexier than that,” Baffert said.
In the quest for a division championship, it was important for McKinzie to win the Whitney. He was coming off a second-place finish in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap, a race that gnawed at Baffert for the tough trip McKinzie had in the stretch.

There were no such trip issues on Saturday. Breaking alertly under Mike Smith, McKinzie was right with the pack, running outside of Monongahela and Imperative while three wide to take a short lead around the first turn.

Junior Alvarado, breaking from the outside on Preservationist, was intent on the lead and cleared McKinzie as the field straightened out down the backside. Smith took a hold of McKinzie to guide his horse to the outside of Preservationist six furlongs from home. He was three lengths clear of Vino Rosso in third.

“I wanted to ride hard enough to separate the field so if I needed to get out I could get out,” Smith said.

McKinzie tracked Preservationist from 1 1/2 lengths back through six furlongs in 1:11.30 before the field began to bunch up approaching the quarter pole. McKinzie was in the three path with Preservationist and Monongahela to his inside and Vino Rosso and a five-wide Yoshida on his outside.

Straightening away in the lane, Smith resorted to a vigorous hand ride aboard McKinzie and began to spurt clear. Yoshida, under Joel Rosario, made a late run but it wasn’t enough.

McKinzie covered the 1 1/8 miles in 1:47.10, which, when converted to fifths, equals the second-fastest Whitney since it was shortened to 1 1/8 miles in 1955. Tri Jet ran 1:47 in 1974 when times were not recorded in hundredths. Lawyer Ron holds the track and stakes record at 1:46.64, set in 2007.

“The important thing is he ran, he had to work at it but he got away from them and the best part of it was at the end of the race so that gives me more confidence that he’ll get the mile and a quarter down the road,” Smith said.

McKinzie will try the 1 1/4 miles in the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 2 at Santa Anita. His Whitney victory earned his connections a fees-paid berth into that race via the Breeders’ Cup’s Win and You’re In program.

Baffert said he plans to run McKinzie one more time between now and the Breeders’ Cup, though he doesn’t know where yet.
Yoshida, who won the Woodward Stakes here last summer, had finished sixth in each of his last three starts. Rosario thought in upper stretch he had a chance to reel in McKinzie.

“I thought for a second ‘I got him’ and he had another gear at the end,” Rosario said. “He ran very fast, couldn’t beat him.”

Yoshida finished second by 4 3/4 lengths over Vino Rosso, who was followed by Preservationist, Forewarned, Monongahela, and Imperative. Thunder Snow was scratched in the morning due to a cough and temperature, according to his trainer, Saeed bin Suroor.

* All-sources handle for Saturday's 11-race card was $31,835,863, a Whitney Day record, eclipsing the previous mark of $30,153,138 wet in 2017.