OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Swore is a relative newcomer to the steeplechase game, but he’s obviously a quick study.  Swore, in just his third career steeplechase start, battled back after being passed in upper stretch by the more experienced Welshman to beat that rival by a neck in Thursday’s Grade 1, $150,000 Lonesome Glory Stakes at Aqueduct.  Swore is trained by Keri Brion, who won three of the four Grade 1 steeplechase stakes run in New York this year. At Saratoga, she captured the A.P. Smithwick with Historic Heart and the Jonathan Sheppard with Jimmy P. For good measure, Brion also won the Jonathan Kiser Novice Stakes with Blue Creek. “How about that? Pretty cool,” said Brion, who in 2021 won all three of New York’s Grade 1 steeplechase stakes, two of those courtesy of The Mean Queen. “You have a year like that with The Mean Queen and you wonder if you’ll ever do that again. And then you get a barn full of good horses that just keep doing it.”  Swore, a Stone Farm home-bred son of Broken Vow, raced his flat career for Graham Motion, going 1 for 12 from 2021 through last October. Brion said she received the horse last November and had wind surgery performed on him almost immediately.  :: Access the most trusted data and information in horse racing! DRF Past Performances and Picks are available now. Swore didn’t race for Brion until July, when he finished second in a maiden race at Colonial Downs. He came back five weeks later to win a maiden race by 2 1/4 lengths, also at Colonial.  “I really thought he’d win first time out and he bumped into a really nice horse of Jack Fisher’s [Cyber Ninja], but [he] ran great and then came back and did what he needed to do with a rough trip down on the inside,” Brion said.  Brion felt the field shaping up for the Lonesome Glory wasn’t overly tough. She also felt the horses coming out of the Jonathan Sheppard might be compromised coming back in just three weeks after that race was pushed back a week due to inclement weather.  Brion said she was confident Swore would at least hit the board in the Lonesome Glory. After leading the way over all 10 fences under Stephen Mulqueen, Swore was overtaken by Welshman, who was coming off an allowance win over the flat at Fair Hill on Aug. 30.  “I was literally screaming at the TV – stay up for second! – and then you see him and he just starts grinding,” Brion said. “He’s a funny horse in that he probably wants to go three miles.”  Brion said it was more her idea than Mulqueen’s to go to the front, but given how slow the early pace was, the jockey was content to be there. When Welshman, under Graham Watters, passed him, Mulqueen said he would have been happy to be second.  “I thought when I turned in and Graham went by, he looked like he was going quite well, but then he never picked up and went away from me,” Mulqueen said. “I got one little flick into my horse and he was game. He went looking for the line.”  Swore found the line first, covering the 2 1/2 miles in 4:38.39. He returned $10.46 as the second choice.  Welshman finished second, 1 1/2 lengths better than Sweet Will. Hidden Path was fourth, followed by Bee Well, favored Zarak the Brave, Travesuras, and Caramelised. Evie’s Prince scratched. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.