Sistercharlie will race next year

Sistercharlie, the 2018 female turf champion who won six consecutive Grade 1 stakes before finishing third in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf, will race as a 6-year-old in 2020, trainer Chad Brown confirmed Thursday.

The decision was announced by owner Peter Brant in a press release.

“She’s currently getting a break at Dell Ridge Farm,” Brown said. “She’s obviously a world-class racehorse, one of the best I’ve trained for sure. To have her race another year is really a gift at this point. It’s really exciting.”

Sistercharlie, an Irish-bred daughter of Myboycharlie, has won 10 of 15 starts. She began her career in France with Henri Alex-Pantall and moved to Brown midway through her 3-year-old season. She raced only once at 3, a neck loss in the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks Invitational.

In 2018, at age 4, Sistercharlie won four Grade 1 stakes – the Jenny Wiley, Diana, Beverly D., and Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf – to earn the Eclipse Award as female turf champion. Her only loss that year came by a head to stablemate Fourstar Crook in the Grade 2 New York Stakes.

Sistercharlie got a late to start to her 5-year-old season, repeating in the Diana in July at Saratoga and then the Beverly D. at Arlington. She won the Grade 1 Flower Bowl at Belmont before finishing third behind, 2 1/2 lengths behind winner Iridessa in the Filly and Mare Turf.

Brown said Sistercharlie would likely be sent him to in Florida just after New Year’s Day, but he added it was premature to say where she would make her seasonal debut.

“We’ll get her back into training and see how she’s training first and plot out a campaign,” Brown said.