Startup Nation continues Brown's hot hand by taking With Anticipation

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Startup Nation made an eye-catching last-to-first move to win Thursday’s Grade 2, $200,000 With Anticipation Stakes, giving Chad Brown a sweep of this week’s juvenile turf stakes while continuing his pursuit of Todd Pletcher as Saratoga’s leading trainer.

Startup Nation was one of three wins for Brown on Thursday’s card, enabling him to move within one win of Pletcher, 23-22, heading into the final four days of the meet. Brown had one more starter on Thursday’s card, Golden Rifle, who finished second in the ninth race.

Pletcher has won 10 Saratoga trainer titles, including the last four while Brown has finished second to Pletcher the last three summers.

“We’re just going to go race by race and put them in the right spot,” Brown said. “I thought I had good chances today - all the horses are in the right spots and they’re all doing well. We’ll just stick to our plan here.”

In his brief training career, Brown has had great success with 2-year-olds on turf. On Wednesday, he won his third P.G. Johnson Stakes with Partisan Politics.

Thursday, Startup Nation gave Brown his second With Anticipation victory in the last three years. Under Joel Rosario, Startup Nation was last, seven lengths back, after a half-mile run in 47.27 seconds. Rosario launched a four-to-five-wide move around the turn and his mount swept past the field by the time the horses straightened out for the stretch.

Startup Nation, a New York-bred son of Temple City, continued on through the stretch to win by 4 1/2 lengths over International Star.

Startup Nation, owned by Seth Klarman’s Klaravich Stables and Bill Lawrence, covered 1 1/16 miles over firm ground in 1:41.63.

Startup Nation had to withstand a claim of foul by Rosie Napravnik, rider of International Star who alleged interference. In an unusual move, the stewards not only talked to Rosario and Napravnik, they also spoke to riders Javier Castellano and Irad Ortiz Jr., who were in the race but neither of whom lodged an objection.

“For at least two other jockeys to get on the phone with the stewards and defend my case that the pressure was coming from the outside - we were all in bad spots - I think really the horse should have definitely come down,” Napravnik said

Napravnik added that the video replays don’t accurately depict the pressure that was coming on her from Rosario.

“I wasn’t able to ride him for 10, 12, 15 strides because I was trying to protect myself and the riders inside of me to not get into a really bad situation,” Napravnik said. ‘All of us were yelling to Joel to give us a break because we were in tight and there was actually no effort to alleviate the pressure from the outside.”

Rosario said he felt the horse inside of International Star, Designed for War, “came out a little bit too and she might have been in a bad spot. I tried to give her some room and I was clear from there.”

Brown, who said he saw “absolutely nothing,” said he was impressed with his horse’s performance.

“For this horse to run back in three weeks and run the way he did [1:41.63] I mean he’s a real runner,” Brown said.