Sea Strike, in first two-turn race, impresses with Curlin victory
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Chad Brown calls Sea Strike the most impressive horse he watches train in the morning. Those who observed Sea Strike on Sunday afternoon at Saratoga had to come away pretty impressed as well.
Sea Strike, in his first start around two turns and just his third career race, overtook pacesetting Gulfy at the top of the stretch and, with only mild encouragement from Flavien Prat, drew clear to win Sunday’s $150,000 Curlin Stakes by 8 1/4 lengths over a left-in-the-dust Chief Wallabee.
It was five lengths back to Gulfy in third.
“He’s the best-training horse I have, and he has been all year,” said Brown, who won his seventh Curlin, a listed stakes for 3-year-olds that has been run 17 times. “Often that doesn’t correlate to meaning that you’re the best race horse, but when he breezes he breezes freaky good.”
In April, Sea Strike overcame a slow start to defeat maidens going six furlongs at Aqueduct. He resented having dirt kicked in his face when he finished third in an allowance sprint race at Saratoga in June. Brown thought stretching the horse out in distance would put Sea Strike close to the pace and would potentially eliminate his chances of having to take dirt early on.
That’s exactly how it played out in the Curlin as Sea Strike was second and in the clear stalking Gulfy through fractions of 23.62 seconds for the quarter, 47.77 for the half-mile and 1:11.88 for six furlongs.
Sea Strike took over just above the quarter pole and widened his margin through the lane while being taken in hand inside the sixteenth pole. Sea Strike, a son of Midshipman owned by Sean Flanagan - who won the Curlin last year with Chancer McPatrick - covered the 1 1/8 miles in 1:48.94 and returned $13.62 to win.
“The farther I was going to run him, I figured he’d be very forward with a clean face, he just gave me that feel he didn’t really want the dirt,” Brown said. “Sure enough, turning for home, when I saw him still sitting there, I was pretty confident.”
Most were confident that the Curlin was going to be a good spot for Chief Wallabee to return to the winner’s circle for the first time since he won his debut at Gulfstream in January. After competing in four consecutive graded stakes - including fourth-place finishes in the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes - this was seemingly needed class relief.
Chief Wallabee moved into third leaving the half-mile pole and gave Junior Alvarado a brief run to the quarter pole, but he couldn’t sustain it. Chief Wallabee’s future may be in races run around one turn.
“Look, we tried, we’re looking for classic horses, we gave it a good effort,” trainer Bill Mott said. “I hope we haven’t taken too much out of him, but hopefully we can go back to one-turn races and be a little more effective.”
Meanwhile, Sea Strike may have done enough Sunday to earn a shot at the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers on Aug. 29.
“He ran pretty good today and looked like he had more in the tank,” Brown said. “I’m not saying a step-up against these other horses he’d do the same, and he’s likely to have some company in that final turn against better horses. We’ll just see how he comes out of it and go from there, but I wouldn’t take it off the table.”
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