Regal Glory takes advantage of hot pace in Just a Game
ELMONT, N.Y. – The long wait is finally over.
Chad Brown hadn’t won a Just a Game Stakes since all the way back in 2020.
Brown’s one-year dry spell ended Saturday when Regal Glory stormed to a 3 1/2-length victory in the Grade 1, $500,000 Just a Game.
All kidding aside, Brown might have felt miffed over Althiqa’s win in the 2021 Just a Game, since he’d trained the Just a Game winner the four previous years.
Order was restored Saturday, though the Bill Mott-trained Wakanaka broke up a Brown sweep by finishing second. She had 1 1/4 lengths on the Brown-trained In Italian, who set the table for Regal Glory – and, to a lesser and undesigned extent, Wakanaka – pushing pacesetting Leggs Galore through a sprint pace in this one-turn turf mile. Leggs Galore, after going 22.24 and 45.53 over a firm course, was toast at the quarter pole.
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In Italian took over and held the lead to the furlong grounds. Somewhat surprisingly, she’d been only about one length off Leggs Galore’s pace down the backstretch and around the turn.
“She’s fast,” said In Italian’s jockey, Irad Ortiz Jr. “I broke and followed the other horse.”
In Italian did well to finish as close as she she did; Leggs Galore, who was last of five, was more than eight lengths behind her at the wire. The race’s big disappointment was the Brown-trained even-money favorite Speak of the Devil, who’d been so brilliant winning her American debut in the Distaff Turf Mile at Churchill Downs. That race was run over a wet track with tight turns. The more expansive Belmont course was quite fast Saturday, with Regal Glory clocking 1:32 for the mile. She paid $4.80 and earned a 103 Beyer Speed Figure.
“She just didn’t kick today,” said a flummoxed Flavien Prat, Speak of the Devil’s jockey.
As for the winner, sure, she got a setup, but Regal Glory ran tremendously in the Just a Game – once again. Six-year-old Regal Glory, a daughter of Animal Kingdom and Mary’s Follies, by More than Ready, was bred by Paul Pompa and, like all Brown’s starters in the Just a Game, is owned by Peter Brant. She’s always been a good horse, winning five of her first seven starts, but she’d been fourth in the 2020 and 2021 renewals of the Just a Game and didn’t win a Grade 1 until her 16th career start, in the Matriarch last fall in California. Regal Glory’s first triple-digit Beyer Speed Figure had come in October, when she was second in the Grade 1 First Lady, and after the Matriarch, plans called for her retirement to the breeding shed.
Brown then mentioned the Pegasus Filly and Mare Turf on Jan. 29 as a race Regal Glory could contest before being bred this year, and after she won with aplomb, Brown said Brant made the call to keep the mare in training this year. Regal Glory won the Grade 1 First Lady in April at Keeneland and after Saturday’s victory she has an early inside track on an Eclipse Award as champion female turf horse. Regal Glory can further burnish her credentials when, as planned, she faces males Aug. 16 in the Fourstardave Handicap at Saratoga. The Just a Game is named for Brant’s champion female turf horse of 1980; Brant had never won the race until Saturday.
“Mr. Brant made the call to keep racing her this year, which was a brilliant move,” said Brown. “It’s just one of those situations where she’s in her prime right now. Some horses catch their peak window at different ages. Her, it seems like age 6.”
Jose Ortiz rode Regal Glory in her first four starts, was off her for several races, but has been the mare’s jockey for her last eight races, feeling the horse improve start by start and now maintain that form. Regal Glory is not a feminine mare, and her way of going is more brutally effective than pleasing to the eye. But who cares about the details at this point.
“She got older, stronger, and smarter,” said Ortiz.
Regal Glory brought her “A” game to the Just a Game. It was no contest.