Selflessly, Tamahere look to continue Brown's dominance in Sands Point

Trainer Chad Brown has won two of the last three renewals of the Grade 2 Sands Point, and chances are good he will continue his recent dominance when sending out Selflessly and Tamahere as the likely favorites against just six other 3-year-old fillies Saturday at Belmont Park.

Brown, who has saddled three Sands Point winners overall, won the race with Uni in 2017 and again last year with New and Improved. Ball Dancing gave Brown his first Sands Point victory in 2014. The Sands Point has been shortened from 1 1/8 miles on turf to a mile for the first time.

Selflessly is already a two-time graded stakes winner, having captured the Grade 2 Miss Grillo at 2 and the Grade 3 Lake George in her most recent start Aug. 28 at Saratoga. A daughter of More Than Ready, Selflessly finished fifth, beaten four lengths, after a bit of a wide trip in the 2019 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. The 87 Beyer Speed Figure she received for her hard-fought nose decision over Sweet Melania in the one-mile Lake George was far and away a career best.

Tamahere is a bit of a question mark making her U.S. debut Saturday. She has started six times in her native France, winning twice, but has yet to face graded stakes competition. She will compete on Lasix for the first time in the Sands Point while showing a pair of bullet works on the grass since joining Brown’s stable, one at Saratoga and a second over the Belmont turf on Sept. 26.

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Christophe Clement, who has won the Sands Point twice, with Rutherienne in 2007 and Discreet Marq in 2013, counters the Brown duo with a graded stakes winner of his own, Speaktomeofsummer. The stretch-running filly overcame early trouble to rally to a head tally in the Grade 2 Lake Placid going nine furlongs opening week of the Saratoga session. She returned to finish fourth, beaten 3 1/2 lengths, in the Saratoga Oaks. She will turn back to a mile for the first time since finishing fourth in the Grade 3 Wonder Again in her 3-year-old debut, well in front of Selflessly, who finished a distant fifth after stumbling at the break.

“I think she’s very versatile from a mile to a mile and a quarter. I don’t see the distance as a negative, I think she’s perfectly okay with it,” Clement said of the cutback to a mile.

Speaktomeofsummer, who won the Chesley Flower at a mile in her juvenile finale, will carry high weight of 122 pounds under the allowance conditions of the event.

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Pure Wow steps up out of the allowance ranks and figures to provide an honest pace along with Miss J McKay, who stretches out off a series of sprint races, and Drop a Hint, a Gulfstream Park shipper exiting a second-place finish in the Miss Gracie Stakes.

New York-bred allowance winner Giacosa and outsider Positive Power round out the lineup.