Valid Point rewards confident connections in Secretariat

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – The Secretariat Stakes was supposed to be the weakest link in trainer Chad Brown’s attempt for an unprecedented sweep of the three Grade 1 turf races that comprise the International Festival of Racing at Arlington Park.

No such luck for the Chad detractors.

Valid Point, carefully reserved off a contested early pace by jockey Javier Castellano, launched a well-timed run off the final bend on his way to a one-length triumph Saturday in the 43rd running of the Grade 1, $500,000 Secretariat Stakes at Arlington Park. The Secretariat was sandwiched between victories by the heavily favored Brown pair of Sistercharlie in the Beverly D. and Bricks and Mortar in the Arlington Million.

Valid Point, a Scat Daddy colt owned by Mike Ryan and the eFive Racing Thoroughbreds of Bob Edwards, returned $7.20 as second choice behind another Brown trainee, Fog of War, in a field of nine 3-year-olds. Van Beethoven, a 28-1 shot, rallied late to be second, another three-quarters of a length before The Last Zip, also a 28-1 chance. Fog of War faded to sixth.

The winning time for the new one-mile distance of the Secretariat, which formerly had been run at 1 1/4 miles, was 1:35.50 over firm going.

Valid Point is now unbeaten in three career starts after winning a February maiden race at Gulfstream Park and a June allowance race at Belmont Park.

“He’s really a talented horse,” Brown said afterward. “To run him in a Grade 1 off just those two races shows how much confidence we had in him.”

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The Last Zip and Crafty Daddy contested fractions of 24.14 and 47.68 seconds as Castellano kept Valid Point within himself when trailing down the backstretch. Leaving the half-mile, kept in the clear in an outside lane, Valid Point made his move, kicking past the front-runners leaving the furlong pole before finishing safe of Van Beethoven.

“I really liked the way he did it today,” said Castellano. “Some other horses were showing a lot of speed, so I got him into a nice rhythm out of the first turn. I really liked the way he finished. We had a lot of confidence in him, the way he’d shown in the mornings and his races.”

Valid Point “was injured at 2 and never made it into me,” said Brown, crediting Ryan and Edwards for having the colt sent for extensive rehabilitation at the Florida division of Stonestreet Farm. “They sent him to me in excellent condition. It was just a team effort.”

Brown said he “hadn’t looked beyond this race” in regard to future plans for Valid Point, a bay Kentucky-bred.

“This was a big risk, throwing him into a Grade 1 like this,” he said. “I wanted to see how this worked out. We were quietly confident about it. I’ll huddle up with Mike and Bob this week about what we want to do. Hopefully we can keep him healthy and moving forward because he’s a very exciting horse for the future.”

Brown now has won the Secretariat twice, with Beach Patrol (2016) being his prior winner.

The $2 exacta (7-2) paid $163.60, the $1 trifecta (7-2-4) returned $1,088.70, and the 10-cent superfecta (7-2-4-9) was worth $546.95.