Mrs. Revere win would make for happy homecoming for Brown assistant Beckman
RACE REPLAY IS NOT AVAILABLE
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A victory by one of the fillies he accompanied here from New York would make for an even happier homecoming for Whit Beckman.
As a top assistant to Chad Brown, Beckman is at Churchill Downs this week with Nay Lady Nay and New and Improved, both of whom appear entirely capable of winning the co-featured Mrs. Revere Stakes on the big Clark card Friday.
“Both will need to work out a trip,” said Beckman, who grew up in Louisville, graduating from St. Xavier High School in 2000. “They’ll both be coming from off it, but that’s how we gear up our horses, to settle in and then explode down the lane.”
Nay Lady Nay was assigned post 2, while New and Improved will start from post 12 in a capacity field of 14 3-year-old fillies in the Grade 2, $300,000 Mrs. Revere, a 1 1/16-mile turf race that precedes the Grade 1 Clark as the ninth of 12 Friday races. Both arrived here Monday after Brown sent them through their final pre-race breezes last weekend over the Belmont Park training track. Junior Alvarado will be on Nay Lady Nay, and Joel Rosario on New and Improved.
“They both made the trip well and are doing just great,” Beckman said Wednesday.
Beckman, 37, is in the process of moving out of his house in New York and resettling in Louisville after he works the coming winter at Palm Meadows in Florida. Brown, heretofore a presence on the Kentucky circuit only during selected spring and fall dates, has decided to join the mass influx of prominent trainers from across the continent being lured here by a dramatically improved purse structure. He intends to set up shop at Churchill for the better part of 2020 by having 30 or so horses in Barn 42, with Beckman his onsite chief.
By returning to Kentucky, Beckman, the son of equine veterinarian David Beckman, will be closer to his daughter, who turns 4 next month, and other family members, including his parents.
“It’s a good setup for us all,” he said.
Meanwhile, Beckman would like to (temporarily) leave town with another graded stakes win for Brown, the three-time defending Eclipse Award winner who through last weekend led all trainers in 2019 with 52 graded stakes wins, six of them at Kentucky tracks. They’ll be among the wagering favorites along with The Mackem Bullet (post 14, Tyler Gaffalione), winner of the Grade 2 Appalachian at Keeneland in April, and Dalika (post 4, Luis Saez), a solid fifth last month in the Grade 3 Valley View at Keeneland.
This is the 29th running of the Mrs. Revere, named for a 1981 foal who was a local standout in the mid-1980s.
