Virginia Joy won Grade 2 Flower Bowl, felt like Grade 1, Brown says

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Trainer Chad Brown will be the first to admit his Virginia Joy got away with an extremely soft pace as a steppingstone to her upsetting the prohibitive favorite War Like Goddess in Saturday’s Grade 2 Flower Bowl. But Brown was quick to add that it shouldn’t diminish the fact the hard-knocking mare still had to dig down deep to earn her third and most important graded stakes win of the year, one which came at the direct expense of the undisputed leader of the filly and mare turf division.

“She got away with easy fractions, but to her credit had enough left to really lay her belly down and get to the wire first,” Brown said at his barn after training hours here Sunday. “And Irad (Ortiz) did a masterful job riding the horse. She’s been very consistent for us, has traveled around a little bit and I feel like she deserved a win in a meaningful race like this.”

Virginia Joy earned a 98 Beyer Speed Figure for her effort, her second-best behind only the 100 she posted in winning the Grade 2 Sheepshead Bay by 14 1/4 lengths in May.

Unfortunately for Brown, who has won the Flower Bowl a record seven times, and Virginia Joy, the race was downgraded to Grade 2 status in 2022 after having been a Grade 1 event since 1982.

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“You wouldn’t even know it was a Grade 2 between the history, the fact it’s a “win and you’re in” Breeders’ Cup race and all the flowers we have around the barn this morning,” Brown said. “The only thing different about the race from previous years was the two next to it. Everything else about it says it’s a Grade 1."

Brown acknowledged he’s still a bit puzzled about why the race was no longer a Grade 1 in light of the stellar group that contested the event here last summer.

“I can’t understand why they downgraded it this year,” Brown continued. “Especially when you consider Bill’s (Mott) mare won it last year (War Like Goddess) and that My Sister Nat also came out of the race and they were the second- and third-place finishers in the Breeders’ Cup. I just don’t feel it was a good decision based on the form from the race last year.”

While winning the Flower Bowl gave Virginia Joy an automatic, fees-paid berth into the 2022 Filly and Mare Turf, Brown said her status for the race remains up in the air.

“We obviously have a large group of horses in this division at all different distances,” Brown said. “The race is at a mile and three sixteenths this year at Keeneland, which I think is a great distance for the event, although I’m not sure if it particularly works for this filly. But I believe it allows the most horses at the highest levels coming out of the most prestigious races in the division to kind of meet in the middle.”

As for his seven Flower Bowl wins, Brown says the end result is a combination of “the great horses I’ve been sent to work with and the great job done by my team at the barn who work with these horses on a daily basis. That’s where all the credit goes.”

The distance of the 2022 Filly and Mare Turf will definitely keep War Like Goddess from competing in the race again this year. Trainer Bill Mott repeated on Sunday what he’s said for the last month, that War Like Goddess would run against males in the 1 1/2-mile Breeders’ Cup Turf at Keeneland on Nov. 5.

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War Like Goddess ran a huge race in defeat defending her Flower Bowl title after encountering some traffic issues, while having to rally from last off the snail-like pace set by the winner.

“I take nothing away from the filly (War Like Goddess). The scenario was not what we wanted. It was our biggest fear (the slow pace) and it came to pass,” said Mott, who added that War Like Goddess would not race again prior to the Breeders’ Cup.

“I think she’s good enough to compete,” said Mott, regarding the decision to run her against males in the Turf. “I believe in my heart she would be a factor.”

- additional reporting by David Grening