Prerequisite wires Wonder Again Stakes
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Prerequisite jumped straight from remedial studies to advanced classes. A second-start maiden winner May 7, Prerequisite went wire to wire under Flavien Prat and captured the Grade 2, $200,0000 Wonder Again Stakes on Sunday at Belmont Park.
Be Your Best ran hard at the winner but fell a neck short, finishing second by one length over 7-5 favorite Revalita.
Chad Brown trains Prerequisite, Revalita, and Venencia, who broke slowly and finished last in a field of 3-year-old fillies reduced to seven by the scratch of Juniper’s Beauty. At odds of 7-1, Prerequisite was the longest price among the trio – and the fastest.
Prerequisite debuted April 1 at Gulfstream, finishing fourth in a turf-route maiden before graduating second time out in a Belmont turf maiden at the Wonder Again’s 1 1/8-mile distance. Brown must have liked what he saw that day and on Sunday, Prerequisite rewarded his confidence.
Spansive, who won Prerequisite’s debut race, had led from start to finish in two wins to begin her career, but Prat let his mount run to an early lead she never relinquished. Going 23.67, 47.94 and 1:11.80, Prerequisite edged away from Spansive in upper stretch and braced for challenges from Be Your Best and Revalita. Be Your Best ate steadily into the lead through the final furlong, but the wire came before she could reach the pacesetter, though her runner-up performance solidly exceeded her lone previous outing in 2023, a seventh in the Appalachian Stakes at Keeneland. Revalita came home fastest but was left too much to do after racing from sixth under Jose Ortiz.
The winner was timed in 1:47.20 over a firm course and paid $16.
Bred in Kentucky by Brereton Jones, Prerequisite is a daughter of Upstart and the Smart Strike mare Etsu who was purchased at a 2022 two-year-old auction for $350,000. Brown trains her for First Row Partners and Team Hanley.
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